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THE 

ITALIAN RENAISSANCE 
IN ENGLAND 

STUDIES 



BY 



LEWIS EINSTEIN 




'Nzixi fork 
THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, Agents 

LONDON : MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 
1902 

AH rights reserved 



^^ 






THP L»BRARY OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two Copies ttiiCEtveD 

ilflAR. 2? 1902 

CopvRMjHT e*rnry 
COPY A. 



Copyright, 1902, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped March, 1902. 



J. S. Cuihing & Co. — Berwick & Smith 
Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 



TO 



Mu fatfjer anD Mu iWotfjer 



PREFACE 

The history of the Italian Renaissance in the coun- 
tries of Europe outside of Italy still remains a subject 
half unexplored. No account has as yet been written 
of the successive steps by which Italian culture crossed 
the Alps, the different directions it took, and the 
extent of its influence. The purpose of these studies 
is, therefore, to supply a link in the chain, and 
trace the Italian influence in England from the 
beginning of the fifteenth century until the death of 
Elizabeth. Separate aspects of this have, it is true, 
been treated by others. Beginning with Warton and 
Nott, a number of scholars have searched especially 
for the ItaHan sources of English poetry. Although 
in recent years most work of this kind has been ac- 
compHshed in Germany, Miss Scott's contribution to 
a similar subject ought not to pass unnoticed in the 
scholarly annals of our own country. No serious 
effort has, however, been made to discover a common 
impulse running through the Italian influences in Eng- 
land : to find at the university, at court, and among 
the people at large, in different and even opposite 
directions, the results of one and the same great 

movement. 

vii 



viii PREFACE 

In all, three stages can be discerned in the his- 
tory of the Itahan influence in England during the 
period of the Renaissance. The first, extending to 
the end of the fifteenth century, found a centre at the 
University of Oxford, i It succeeded, after several 
attempts, in introducing the new classical and scien- 
tific learning of Italy into England, and thereby laid 
the foundation for all future English scholarship, The 
second and third epochs embrace respectively the two 
halves of the sixteenth centurj^)^ The growth of Italian 
culture at court marked the former; it flourished 
there under royal protection, and assisted in creating 
the new types of accomplished courtier and learned 
traveller, often the same individual under different 
aspects. The third and last period witnessed a great 
extension of the Italian influence, as it spread gradu- 
ally from the court to the people at large. At the 
same time, the moral and national reaction against 
Italy, which was further fostered by the growth of 
Puritanism, put an end to much of this influence. 

These studies have been divided into two groups. 
The first is concerned mainly with the Englishman as 
affected by Italy in scholarship, court life and travel, 
and later with the movement against Itahan influence. 
The second treats rather of the Italians in England, 
— merchants and artists, reformers and adventurers. 
Allusions of many kinds must necessarily creep into 
any work attempting to cover so wide a range. Such, 



_^j 



PREPACK ix 

however, as refer to the historical and religious rela- 
tions existing between Italy and England have so far 
as possible been omitted. Politics and religion in 
the sixteenth century were everywhere very closely 
connected, and the Anglo-Italian relations of this 
nature belong more properly to a history of the 
Reformation. Only so far as they may have in- 
fluenced Enghsh life and culture have they been 
mentioned here. 

It may seem idle to rehearse the Italian influence 
in English literature, so much research has already 
been expended on it. The labors of scholars on this 
subject, however, have never before been brought 
together. Several new ideas and suggestions will per- 
haps add some further novelty to what might other- 
wise seem of familiar interest to the specialist. 

Most of the illustrations are from prints in the 
British Museum, reproduced here for the first time. 
The portraits of Wyatt and Surrey by Holbein are, 
however, from the well-known Windsor Castle collec- 
tion. The tomb of Dr. John Yonge, by Torrigiano, 
formerly in the Rolls Chapel, is now preserved in the 
museum of the Record Oflice in London, and the 
original of the manuscript letter in the Duke Hum- 
phrey correspondence is in the Royal Library at 
Munich. 

That these studies are not more incomplete is due 
to the aid and advice of many friends. Above all, the 



X PREFACE 

writer wishes to express his gratitude to the unfailing 
courtesy and kindness of the officials of the libraries 
in which he worked, especially of the British Museum, 
the Record Office in London, the Bodleian at Oxford, 
and the Archives of Florence. Lastly he desires to 
thank Professor Donati of Siena, Professor Pasquale 
Villari of Florence, Monsignor Giles of the English 
College, Rome, Mr. Bliss of Rome, Mr. Horatio F. 
Brown of Venice, Mr. Sidney Colvin of the British 
Museum, Professor Charles Waldstein of King's Col- 
lege, Cambridge, Mrs. E. H. Blashfield, his sister. 
Miss Amy Einstein, Mr. Henry A. Uterhart of New 
York, and Dr. John G. Underbill of Brooklyn. In 
particular he wishes to thank Dr. J. E. Spingarn of 
Columbia University for aid, which has at all times 
proved valuable, and Professor G. E. Woodberry for 
his ever kindly criticism and advice extending over 
a period of years. 

New York, 
January 2, 1902. 



CONTENTS 



PART FIRST 



CHAPTER I 



The Scholar 



Italy and Oxford .... 
Duke Humphrey and his Circle 
Duke Humphrey as a Patron of Oxford 
Thomas Beckynton and his Friends . 
Early English Scholars in Italy . 
The First Oxford Group . 
John Free's Letters from Italy . 
The First " Italianate Englishman " . 
The New Generation 
Grocyn and Linacre in Italy 
Grocyn and Linacre in England 
Humanism ..... 
More as a Friend of the New Learning 
Colet's Debt to Italy .... 
Types of Scholars .... 
Churchmen and Letters . 
The Literary Patron of the Renaissance 



PAGE 
I 

3 
7 

12 

14 

17 
21 
24 
29 
30 
33 
39 
43 
45 
47 
51 
53 



CHAPTER II 
The Courtier 

The New Court Life 

The Question of the Gentleman 
Democratic Feeling in the Sixteenth Century 

xi 



58 
61 

65 



Xll 



CONTENTS 



The Perfect Man 

Sport in the Renaissance . 

Treachery and Quarrels . 

Masks at Court 

ItaUan Fashions in England 

The New Code of Manners 

Renaissance Platonism 

The Theory of Love . 

The " New Woman " 

The Courtier as a Diplomat 

The Courtier as a Scholar 

The Ideal of Arms and Letters 

The Art of War 

Italian at the English Court 

The New Study of Italian 

Italian Courtesy Books 

The Influence of Italy in Court Life 

The Courtier Poet 

The New Education of Women 



68 

69 

1Z 
76 

79 
81 

83 

84 

86 

90 

92 

93 

95 

97 

99 

107 

109 

III 

112 



CHAPTER III 



The Traveller 



The First Accounts of Italy 

The New Traveller . 

The Two Streams of Travel 

The Art and Theory of Travel 

The Advantages of Travel 

The Englishman in Italy 

Travellers' Expenses . 

The Interest in Antiquity 

Impressions of Rome 

Italian Traits 

The Admiration of Venice 

The Florentines 

Interest in Architecture . 



"5 
117 

120 

123 

126 

130 

132 

134 
136 
140 

143 
145 
147 



CONTENTS 



xm 



English Appreciation of the Arts 

Italian Spectacles 

A Papal Procession . 

The Traveller's Observations 



PAGE 

148 
150 
151 
153 



CHAPTER IV 



The Italian Danger 



The New Nationalism 
The Hatred of Foreigners 
The Danger of Italy . 
The " Italianate Englishman " 
The Crusade against Italy 
Italian Adventurers . 
The Subtlety of Italians . 
The Decay of Italian Influence 



155 
156 

157 
i6i 
166 
168 
169 

173 



PART SECOND 



CHAPTER V 

The Italians in England: Churchmen, 
Artists, and Travellers 

Italians in Mediaeval England . 

Italians at the Court of Henry the Seventh 

Henry the Eighth 

Italian Physicians at Court 

Italian Books in England . 

The Florentine Sculptors . 

Henry the Eighth as a Patron of Artists 

The Italian Influence in Art 

English Art Collectors 

Italian Reformers 

The Italian Church in London 

The Venetian " Relations" 

Italian Opinions of England 



179 
181 

185 
188 
190 

193 
196 
200 
205 
207 
213 

215 
216 



XIV 



CONTENTS 



English Soldiers and Sailors 
The Diplomatist at Court 

English Life 

The Attractiveness of Englishwomen 
National Customs . . . . 



PAGE 

217 
219 
221 
223 
225 



CHAPTER VI 
The Italian Merchant in England 



Italy and Commerce 

'^ The First Italian Bankers .... 
The Rivalry between Florentines and Sienese 
Italian Merchants and the Court 
Florentine Bankers and the Wars of King Edward 
Venetians and Genoese .... 
English Jealousy of Foreign Success , 
An Italian Banking House 
Commercial Instruction in Florence . 
A Merchant's Advice .... 
The Hatred of Foreigners 
The League of Italian Merchants 
A Florentine Bank in London . 
The Italian Community .... 
Foreigners and the Court .... 
Later Italian Merchants .... 

A Popular Uprising 

Sir Anthony Guidotti and his Loan . 
The Anglicized Italian .... 
Italian Navigators and Geographers . 

Books of Travel 

The Italian Influence in Commerce . 



229 
230 

232 

234 
238 

239 
240 
242 

245 
247 

249 
252 

256 
260 
262 
264 
266 
269 

273 
277 
279 
283 



CHAPTER VII 

Italian Political and Historical Ideas in 

England 

Classical Learning and the New Monarchy 
Polydore Vergil and his History 



CONTENTS 



XV 



Machiavelli in England 

Italy and English Political Thought 

Democracy versus Aristocracy 

The Strength of Absolutism 

Alberico Gentile 

English Opinions of Machiavelli 

Italian Historical Literature 

A Philosophy of History . 

The Historian's Duties 

The Italian Influence in Politics and History 



PAGE 

291 

293 
296 
299 
303 

305 
308 

309 
312 

313 



CHAPTER VIII 



The Italian Influence in English Poetry 



Italy and Literature . 




. 








. 316 


The Italian Influence in Mediaeval Poetry 






. 317 


Latin Verse in England .... 






. 318 


The New Poetry at Court . 












. 319 


The " Courtly Makers " . 












. 321 


The Influence of Petrarch 












. 322 


Sir Thomas Wyatt 












. 325 


The Earl of Surrey . 












. 328 


Petrarchism in England . 












. 329 


The Artifices of Poetry 












. 335 


Later Petrarchists 












338 


Spenser and the ItaHans . 












341 


The Lesson of Italy . 












344 


The Latin Poets 












346 


Italy and the Pastoral 












348 


Madrigals in England . . . 












349 


The Italian Influence in Satire . 


—- . 










351 


The Narrative Poems 












354 


Translations from the Itahan . 












355 


The Classical Influence 












357 


Nationalism in Language . 












360 


The Sources of Fiction 












362 



xvi CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Italy and the Drama 365 

Shakespeare's Italy ........ 369 

APPENDIX A 
English Catholics in Rome 

Early Pilgrims 373 

English Catholics in Italy ....... 374 

The English College ....... 379 

Plots and Conspiracies . 381 

Protestants in Italy 384 

APPENDIX B 

English Accounts of Italy in the Sixteenth Cen- 
tury 386 

APPENDIX C 

Italian Accounts of England in the Sixteenth 

Century 388 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

I. Manuscript Sources 391 

II. Printed Sources 393 

III. Works of Reference 405 

INDEX 4U 



f 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 



36 
102 

1 10 



Sir Thomas Wyatt by Holbein, from the Windsor Castle 

collection . . r? ^- ■ 

^ • • • . I'ronttspiece 
Letter of Pier Candido Decembrio to Duke Humphrey of 
Gloucester, from a manuscript in the Ruyal Library 
I Munich ^' 

Thomas Linacre, from a drawing in the Print Room 
British Museum . . ^ ' 

John Florio, from an engraving by William Hole 

The Earl of Leicester by Zuccaro, from a drawing in the 
Prmt Room, British Museum 

The Adoration of the Magi by Isaac Oliver, from a draw- 
ing m the Print Room, British Museum . . . 148 ^ 

The Tomb of Dr. John Young by Torrigiano, formerly in 
the Rolls Chapel, now in the Museum of the Record 
Office, London . 

Medal of Queen Mary by Jacopo Trezzo. Medal of Mary 
Queen of Scots by Jacopo Primavera . 

The Earl of Surrey by Holbein, from the Windsor Castle 
collection . 

324 

Sir John Harington by Thomas Coxon . . . .3^6 



192 
204 



xvu 



I 



THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE 
IN ENGLAND 



CHAPTER I 
THE SCHOLAR 



The influence of Italy on English learning during the 
Renaissance differed in several respects from that exer- 
cised by the other European nations. It was first in 
the field, and for that reason long single in its power. 
Its individual influence, moreover, proved the greatest 
factor in modifying existing intellectual conditions, 
while it supplemented the entire mediaeval fabric of 
learning by the new system it had itself originated. 

Commencing, virtually, about 1425, a gradual devel- 
opment took place in English scholarship till by the 
end of the fifteenth century, when Italian intellectual 
life was beginning to enter on a decline, its lessons 
had been mastered. Fifty years later, learning in Italy 
had become a tradition rather than an actuality. Al- 
though scholars were plentiful, and foreign students 
still attended its universities, the reasons which in- 
duced them to study there were no longer purely 
scholarly. In the intellectual life of England at that 
time, such foreign elements as existed owed their origin 

B I 



ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 



to several nations, no one of which could claim ex 
elusive supremacy. It is thus possible to limit to a 
definite period of time the Italian influence on EngHsh 
scholarship in the Renaissance. During this period its 
course can be traced without unnecessary subtleties. 
The field can be narrowed still further by remembering 
that during the fifteenth century in England, learning 
was almost entirely confined to the universities, and 
to churchmen who for the most part had received 
their education in colleges. Lastly, intellectual ac- 
tivity centred almost exclusively around Oxford. Al- 
though learned men lived elsewhere as well, they appear 
rather as isolated individuals than members of the great 
movement then preparing the way for the reception of 
the new learning in England. In studying, therefore, 
the history of the university and of its friends and 
patrons during that period, one might almost be said 
to witness the intellectual life of an entire nation con- 
densed and focussed at one point. Oxford, in itself, 
thus affords an insight into the scholarly history of the 
EngHsh Renaissance from its beginnings in the decay 
of the Middle Ages, when the first desire arose to share 
in the benefits of the new learning rediscovered by 
Italians, until the time when humanism was no less 
firmly established in England than it had been in 
Italy. 

II 

The Middle Ages had looked upon learning pri- 
marily as the handmaid to theology. In the Renais- 
sance, on the other hand, it was regarded as a guide 



H 



THE SCHOLAR 3 

to the conduct of life. This difference in conception 

brought about the new idea in education which was to 

take the place of the encyclopaedic teachings of the 

church. The transition from one system to the other 

meant an entire revolution in methods of instruction. 

A decline came over the mediaeval fabric of learning : 

i 
the old triviutn and qtmdrivmm were done away with, 

and studies which formerly had seemed of great im- 
portance were now either neglected or dropped 
entirely. 

The questions which once agitated men now gave 
way to new ones. More and more it was felt that the 
scholastic training, out of harmony with actual condi- 
tions, furnished no longer adequate preparation for hfe. 
In the early years of the fifteenth century, when the 
lowest depths of intellectual torpor had been reached 
in England, the efforts of a single man were to bring 
about a great change and introduce new rays of light. 
In Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, son of Henry the 
Fourth, and in the cultivated circle of his friends, the 
intellectual hopes of his country were centred. His 
career is of interest to the literary student, not only as 
the first conspicuous English example of the Italian 
princely patron and lover of learning, but as the bene- 
factor of a great university, the collector of classical 
manuscripts, and the correspondent and protector of 
learned Italians who dedicated their works to him, 
many of whom even visited him in England. 

Duke Humphrey's first aim as a patron of letters was 
to surround himself with a circle of scholars. Among 



4 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

hs English proteges were Pecock, Capgrave, and Lyd- 
g ite, who translated from Boccaccio. His efforts were 
a so directed to bringing over from Italy some of the 
y j)unger humanists to instruct him in the ancient poets 
a; id orators/ while at the same time he maintained a 
correspondence with the greater men who could not be 
tempted to cross the iVlps. The scholars he induced 
to come over translated the classics for his benefit. 
Lapo da Castiglionchio brought with him as a fitting 
recommendation a number of renderings from the 
Greek. Antonio Beccaria of Verona, who had been 
one of Vittorino da Feltre's pupils, was later regu- 
larly employed by the duke as a translator/ while Tito 
Livio of Forli even styled himself the "Poet and Orator 
of the Duke of Gloucester." Although the records of 
this early period are scanty, there can be little doubt 
that Duke Humphrey, in gratifying his own cultivated 
tastes, was also trying to create in England a revival of 
letters by employing the only means possible, since 
Italy was then the intellectual centre of Europe — the 
introduction into England of Italian scholars and 
scholarly methods. At a time, moreover, when patrons 
V Ire a necessity to every literary man, the "good 

1 " Huic tanta litterarum est cura ut ex Italia magistros asciverit 

etarum et oratorum interpretes." — ^neas Sylvius, Epist. 105. 

ie also Epist. 64, Dec. 5, 1443, Letter to Duke Sigismund of 
.' jptria. 

2 " C'est livre est a moy Homfrey Due de Glocestre, lequel 
je fis translate! de Grec en Latin par un de mes secretaires, 
Antoyne de Beccaria de Verone." — Cited in Ellis, Letters of 
^' ninent Literary Men, Camden Society, 1843, P- 357* * 



J 



THE SCHOLAR 5 

Duke " acted the part of a Maecenas to the humanists 
of Italy. Piero del Monte, sent to England as collector 
of the papal revenues, dedicated to him some philosoph- 
ical dialogues. The Duke's attention was also called to 
the new translation of Aristotle's Ethics by Leonardo 
Bruno, the greatest scholar of his age, which pleased 
him so much that he urged Bruno to set to work on the 
Politics. After the first part of this had been completed 
it was sent to London with a dedication to the duke, 
but this was withdrawn when his acknowledgment was 
delayed, and it was dedicated afresh to Pope Eugene 
the Fourth.^ More fortunate were his relations with 
another humanist, Pier Candido Decembrio, who offered 
him a translation of the first five books of Plato's Re- 
public^ first begun by Chrysoloras, which he, continuing 
his father's work, had at last completed. The docu- 
ments referring to this affair have been preserved, 
and are of interest as illustrating similar negotiations 
between the scholar and his patron. The Archbishop 
of Milan first wrote to the duke, knowing his zeal in 
behalf of learning ; having heard that his relations 
with Leonardo Bruno had come to naught, he wished 
to inform the duke that an opportunity now presented 
itself in the translation of Plato's Republic by Pier Can- 
dido, a humanist versed in Greek no less than in Latin. 
If he cared for wisdom or true eloquence, it could be 
found in this book, which in former times had been a 
favorite with Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine.^ His 

1 Vespasiano da Bisticci, Vite, p. 437. 

2 Ms. Royal Library, Munich. Ms. Lat. 222, f. 113 et seq. 



6 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

interest having been aroused by the bishop, a corre- 
spondence began between duke and scholar, which 
brought out the interest of the former in the new learn- 
ing of the Italian Renaissance. Pier Candido grace- 
fully alluded to the fame the duke enjoyed in Italy, and 
how much his efforts had accomplished in the revival 
of letters. The duke was evidently very proud of his 
patronage of scholars, and both styled himself and was 
addressed as litteratissimus} He received at first but 
a portion of the work, and in acknowledging this, he 
urged the humanist to finish the remainder as speedily 
as possible, at the same time warmly praising the 
scholarship displayed in the translation. To this en- 
couragement came a reply, written in the true style of 
the humanists. Just as the shade of a tree was pleasing 
to the weary traveller, as the gentle breeze was welcome 
to the sailor, and the crystal spring to the thirsty man, 
so were, his letters welcome even as those of a great 
poet. As soon as he [Pier Candido] heard that the 
learned Aretine [Bruno] had changed his dedication 
of Aristotle from Humphrey to the Pope, he at once 
determined to celebrate the duke in no inferior man- 
ner, and for that reason had selected the Republic as 
in itself a great work and one of benefit to rulers. He 
compared Humphrey to Julius Caesar, to Octavius and 
other cultivated princes of former times whose names 
had been the brighter for their devotion to learning. 
For this reason he begged him to accept this offering 
of good will and preserve it as a comfort in his own 
1 Ms. cit., f, 246 et seq. 




- rnu pvrrinp\'rn Cym n humfrxdirm cturviri rloj icvT 
Mirrj/cm frA^rn^ Tct xmffrrm ^»T^.".|0^rT^n cforrn - 
m l-yytmn ny ran^iO Ot' JnjpKf tioit*-! f-raiVurmi^ 

Mtc fziTTui prrcV'HiVpnTic\!prilUifB-ir7t 
^_^_ itiC itavit-ntnotn fnne M»<lrn vpi-a*IlcTih 
^tn oti¥n{:r ltttvntti\ipi lO- ncrs uirt fiim<i noia* = 
rmt- inh.*i' qtiorpripuuftitC i1u^imn>' lamianrr 

i*pifci>pi4)* iicr Ticni ioUim Ooftinn^T- Imnim feci 
b»iTn«*Tntrtfv. ixxntatv vn-obfecjtiio iTnhri7niuy ni - 
icp ndrtins pn*«t)3ciiif~<riTH^h7i* 1^ ni-^mnttn dc ttir 
tiitv- civ htirn<tmtzitc i>r pnuVn^ui nut nobiTrc 
ViiI«fTcr niTH rninTmmcvlimt ^tivltt dittcrvTifia 
Ct"«ltnorCTn tiix: cinzitntxS Croj-L fhiriul /rhruTn-^ _ 
\'TC profcrtt> tjriiidvnf- I71 qin txm<t7n tU-niT fruCHif 
/?ti*nr oWcctnn cJ^\•m^\• trm non cnrrru? vycbnctn 
ftnt^frinul^Mnx -prinpiitn optrmi^ii ^Njiirfpi* m w/tf 
n.'/rtv frictir- frtlib* awc^tfhtf triWfnnilti jtrCfiAri nt - 
n^ 17*101^ fztmA cfh mrtnorhrlhs 't^f)5- *n«-»Ti iniilh CX 
h cir o4oru\' dtiio 2 1*" fi n im rvrtri l-rm tt>^cW 7i f- 1 pic 
rnpTvnnS bi<itn orum ninr iio;;f»ir'tnnNT fi>^ oj^y " 
rxhxxf i\(rcc\t\i n>nh.vfo ct'qmiv'ophmi^' cH>ii7^Titn - 
r\*hirt Oi^jwrr Cijrn imhir rnKilurrtT" t-v*<>nrirNiTn 
arrctrriitm tiinu c»n-crv Irtfrnfcy^ Impiic fTinrvni^ 
dittiin AnffT>H*lirp«:>lil-rrrtiTi laiurhio noTTrtc ttv*rtv • 
^TTi fttrnpfcnif nori nu* x^'miv'nrtf ft'^ ^TTTnorhn 
pilpc /rtjtftimh citron fTc-tmVmi 7ti>TTrt-n hiu pofl* 
rahrinufrri* Ttcm mR*ncm iTtuncn- \;Korn. itcctxn' 
rmtrtm laticifiti t-iuim pimVfiiy v^vtrllnv^clinr- 
fiTTiC iphn-ip i;x-2^vnriim-n!» micitin^v mHx>»i 
III poltumtn puifxmirpViilofopbi cm^mu H<in/ 
frmi v'^'l.p^rvtU♦nH^^fT#l i^nam niv* rli^n'^fTr^^^ dc^« ' 
rslut- iqtit> cjtiit>i.' ope IT1I vvrvlU*TtH«S--rriI nnli'ii*?' 



THE SCHOLAR y 

Studies. In his reply the duke expressed delight at 
the beauty of his translation, saying he knew not 
whether to be more grateful to the author or the 
scholar whose efforts had once more brought it to 
hght after it had for so long been buried from view ; 
through Candido he was at last able to admire Plato ; 
in the immortal fame which awaited this labor he 
wished him happiness.^ A considerable amount of 
miscellaneous information was scattered through these 
letters; the duke, for instance, was told of Manuel 
Chrysoloras, whose work had made possible that of an 
Aretine [Bruno] and a Veronese [Guarino], as well as 
of many others who now were laboring when but a short 
time before there had been none. In the last letter 
of the series, the scholar bade the duke farewell, ad- 
dressing him (perhaps by reason of his dedication) as 
Immortalis Princeps? 

Duke Humphrey had studied in his youth at Balliol, 
and in after years the devotion he showed his university 
was to be his noblest trait. Oxford about that time 
had sunk to her lowest level. Scholasticism was dom- 
mant, but her reputation even in these studies was 
behind that of Paris. The long wars with France and 
civil strife at home had greatly affected all scholarly 
pursuits. For a time the university was reduced to 
the greatest misery, and the ruin of education seemed 
imminent.^ Scarcely a thousand students remained in 
her ruined halls, and those who studied were said to 

IMS. Cit., f. 113. '^ Ibid., {. 2A,%. 

8 Epistola Academics Oxonienses, I, 128. 



8 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

find no reward awaiting them amid the poverty and 
distress of the nation.^ In their plight appeals were 
made at different times to Thomas Arundel, Archbishop 
of Canterbury,^ the Duke of Bedford,^ and others, in- i 
forming them of the condition they were in. The one J 
truly generous patron they found proved to be Duke 
Humphrey of Gloucester. Not only were his gifts 
of books of great assistance to them, but his active 
support in the defence of their privileges as the special 
protector of the university was to help them through a 
period of virtual anarchy. There can be no doubt 
that he also advocated reforms in their education. At 
one time, indeed, his relations with them appear to 
have been somewhat strained, probably on account 
of their refusing to adopt certain innovations he had 
pressed.'* 

In first advocating the new Italian humanism in 
England, Duke Humphrey proved himself far in ad- 
vance of his age. The time was not yet ripe, however, 
although general dissatisfaction existed with the old 
scholastic training as a valueless preparation for life. 
The credit for whatever was then accomplished in 
England belongs rightly to the Duke of Gloucester 
and his circle. , What this was, as well as the practical 
purpose of the new humanism he introduced from 
Italy, can perhaps best be judged from a letter written 
in 1444 by ^neas Sylvius Piccolomini, who later 

1 Epist. Acad., 1, 154. 

2 Beckynton, Correspondence, I, 277. 

3 Epist. Acad., I, 94. * Ibid., I, 64. 



THE SCHOLAR 9 

became Pius the Second, to Adam Mulin, Bishop of 
Chichester and Keeper of the Privy Seal : — 

" I read your letter with eagerness, and wondered 
that Latin style had penetrated even into Britain. It 
is true that there have been amongst the English 
some who have cultivated the eloquence of Cicero, 
amongst whom common consent would place the Ven- 
erable Bede. Peter of Blois was far inferior, and I 
prefer your letter to any of his. For this advance all 
gratitude is due to the illustrious Duke of Gloucester, 
who zealously received polite learning into your king- 
dom. I hear that he cultivates poets and venerates 
orators ; hence many Englishmen now turn out really 
eloquent. For as are the princes, so are the people ; 
and servants progress through imitating their masters. 
Persevere, therefore, friend Adam. Hold fast and in- 
crease the eloquence you possess ; consider it the 
most honorable thing possible to excel your fellows in 
that in which men excel other Hving creatures. Great 
is eloquence ; nothing so much rules the world. Polit- 
ical action is the result of persuasion ; his opinion 
prevails with the people who best knows how to per- 
suade them." ^ 

Numerous letters passed between the duke and the 
university during the many years in which he defended 
its privileges. His first benefactions had begun in 
the early years of the fifteenth century. His last 
were to be almost forty years afterward. During 

1 Opera, Epist. LXIV; cited by Creighton, Early Renais- 
sance, p. 19. 



lO ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

this time it was his wisdom alone, the authorities wrote 
him, which had revived learning and enabled scholars 
to devote themselves to it with fresh energy. It was 
almost a divine inspiration, they added, which led him 
to revive the studies of philosophy and the liberal 
arts ; they only trusted he would provide for the con- 
tinued maintenance of this learning ; there was urgent 
need for books and money to carry on the lectures in 
science and philosophy which they knew enjoyed his 
favor, and they furthermore requested his aid in pro- 
viding a permanent foundation for these. 

From time to time, he gave them the books they 
wanted, and assisted them in other ways as well. 
Many letters of gratitude were written him ; if refine- 
ment of life, munificence and Hberality, it was said, 
could confer immortal fame, that fame would be his. 
It was in vain they had searched the records of 
antiquity : there was no one to surpass him in learning 
and literary culture ; nor was his fame confined to 
England, but had crossed the sea and the Alps, so 
that among all the Christian princes none was more 
renowned for his knowledge of the Greek and Italian 
writers. Night and day they now were able to devote 
to their scholarly tasks ; not only they themselves, 
but even eloquent and learned Italians toiled over the 
work. It was a pleasant sight to see the number of 
volumes received from Greece and Italy. * Under his 
patronage, Greek literature, buried for so many centu- 
ries, had again come to life, and once more the philoso- 
phers could be studied in their original tongue. The 



ae 1 



THE SCHOLAR II 

very foundation of eloquence, which he had carried 
over to England from Italy and Greece, would be 
exhausted in the effort to render him due thanks. If 
the Latin races owed him this, how much greater 
gratitude ought the English to feel. Previously there 
had been, it is true, a university at Oxford, but study 
there was none, for there were no books ; now, how- 
ever, through his gifts, they too could discern the secrets 
of learning. Oxford must, therefore, always be the 
home of his glory : if, then, the Trojans vaunted their 
Hector, the Macedonians their Alexander, the Romans' 
their Caesar, it was for Oxonians to extol Humphrey ; 
and while distant rays might reach the students of 
every clime, it was they who enjoyed, so to speak, the 
very beams of the sun itself.^ However great the ex- 
aggeration and flattery of these letters, they yet show a 
decided zeal for learning, and the beginnings of the Re- 
naissance feehng for antiquity. On Duke Humphrey's 
part, the taste was encouraged by presenting Oxford at 
various times with from three to four hundred books, 
purchased, for the most part, in France and Italy. 
Among these were the writings of Petrarch and Boc- 
caccio, the text and commentaries of Dante, and the 
great writers of antiquity, whose works had been re- 
discovered by Italian humanists.^ By these gifts, it 
was said, from having been almost without books, the 
university had grown rich. Once more in their long- 
forgotten majesty the ancient tongues had been re- 

1 Epist, Acad., I, 203, 240. 

2 Vide Munimenta Academica, Indentures of 1439, 1444, etc. 



12 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

vived, and everything which had been written was now 
accessible to students.-^ 

Around Duke Humphrey were grouped the other 
scholars of the age in England. His prot^g^ was 
Thomas Beckynton, Bishop of Wells and a doctor of 
laws of Oxford, who corresponded also with many 
learned Italians, among whom were Flavio Biondo of 
Forh, Angelo Gattola and Piero del Monte. His 
letters reveal quite a little group of English humanists, 
— such men as Adam MuHn, Thomas Chandler and 
William Grey. Nicholas Bildstone, the Archdeacon of 
Winchester, and Richard Pettworth, the secretary to 
Cardinal Beaufort, were also among the few English 
scholars then familiar with the new Italian studies. 
Certain other foreigners resident in England should 
be mentioned as well. Simon de Taramo, the papal 
collector, wrote a letter to Duke Humphrey in 1427, 
full of the new Renaissance spirit of humanism, re- 
alizing the duke's weakness in that direction.^ The 
most important, however, was Vincent Clement, who, 
although perhaps a Spaniard by birth, had yet been 
educated in Italy. He was at different times the papal 
collector in England and Duke Humphrey's orator at 
Rome, where he may well have purchased books for 
Oxford.^ He was certainly known as " the star of the 
university," and in all probabiHty had studied there. 
Later, King Henry the Sixth requested that the degree 
of doctor of divinity be conferred on him, since it was 

1 Epist, Acad., I, 244. 

2 Beckynion, I, 283. ^ Ibid. 



THE SCHOLAR 1 3 

intended to add to his prestige as papal proctor at the 
English court. -^ Various indications point him out as 
a man of great cultivation. His correspondence with 
Thomas Beckynton was full of classical and humanistic 
allusions, as for example when the latter thanked him 
for a volume of poems by the Itahan, Pontanus." In 
this early group of Clement and Beckynton, Chandler 
and Mulin, the first indications of the new spirit 
brought in by the Italian Renaissance can be found 
in England. The scholars centred around Duke Hum- 
phrey, who acted as their patron. With his death, 
however, in 1447, the first period of English humanism 
may be said to have ended. It was not a great age ; 
its scholars were for the most part obscure men, whose 
names, with scarce an excei^tion, have been forgotten. 
Its very knowledge of Greek, even if not confined to 
the Italian humanists in England, probably died out. 
Nevertheless, in marking the first stage of a new move- 
ment, in providing the foundation on which succeeding 
generations might build, in evincing a zeal for letters, 
the age deserves a place in the annals of English 
scholarship; and Duke Humphrey's name, perpetuated 
by his library, should live for the encouragement he 
gave the new learning. 

1 Beckynton, I, 223. 2 Jbid,, I, 178. 



14 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 



III 

Neither the scholarly zeal shown by certain of the 
great English churchmen, nor the travels of such 
Italian humanists in England as Poggio and ^neas 
Sylvius, strictly enter the new scholarly tradition 
which from the first had centred around Oxford and 
Duke Humphrey. In the succeeding age, beginning 
about the middle of the fifteenth century, the chief 
progress in English humanism came through the jour- 
neys of university students to Italy. In all likelihood 
they were unaware of the significance of the move- 
ment they had started afresh. It probably seemed to 
them only a continuation of the mediaeval migrations 
which in former days united the learned world, before 
the feeling of the intellectual kinship of Europe 
had disappeared amid the struggles of rival nations. 
During the Middle Ages, English scholars were by 
no means unknown in Italy. At the University of 
Bologna there was an English *' nation," and both 
Vicenza and Vercelli had English rectors,^ while 
on the registers of Padua, British names appear 
frequently.^ 

The Italian humanists assumed at first a somewhat 
patronizing attitude toward Englishmen, which was not 
without a certain justification. Thus, although Richard 

1 Rashdall, Universities of Europe, I, 157; II, 14', Vide 
Dallari, Rotuli di Bologna. 

2 x^ndiich, De Natione Anglica . . . Universitatis Patavince, 
p. 129. 



THE SCHOLAR 1 5 

de Bury, the most learned man of his day in all Eng- 
land, had met Petrarch, he was unable to grasp his 
new point of view toward the classics, which revolu- 
tionized the scholarly world. Much later, Leonardo 
Bruno said of Thomas of England, an Augustinian 
monk who went to Florence to purchase manuscripts, 
and lectured there in 1395/ that he keenly loved the 
new Italian humanism, as much as one of his nation 
was able to understand it.^ Such early instances of 
Englishmen in Italy formed part, however, of the great 
mediaeval fabric of learning, and bore no direct rela- 
tion to the new age soon to dawn. In spite of exam- 
ples Hke Osbern Bowkenham, the poet, who hved five 
years in Venice, or even of Oxford men who crossed 
the Alps, like Master Norton in 1425 or Master 
Bulkeley in 1429,^ not till later can one feel assured 
that English students went to Italy in search of the 
new learning. 

About the middle of the fifteenth century several 
Englishmen were studying in Italy. One of these, i 
well known for his love of the classics, and in whose 
veins flowed the royal blood of England, was Reynold 
Chicheley, who later became rector of the University 
of Ferrara, where he had studied.* Andrew 01s ^ 

1 Gherardi, Statuii della Universiia e Studio Fiorentino, p. 364. 

2 " Studiorum nostrorum, quantum ilia natio capit, ardentissi- 
mus affectator." — Leon. Bruni, II, 18. Cited by Voigt, Wieder- 
belebung, IT, 258. ^ Epist. Acad., II, 564. 

* Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, Vol. VI, Pt. Ill, 1581. 
^ Could his name have been Ellis? All that is known of him 
comes through Italian sources, and English names became 



1 6 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

was among the first English humanists of whom any- 
thing at all is really known. Like most scholars of 
that age, he occupied a minor church preferment, 
although he never sought ecclesiastical advancement. 
Most of his life was devoted entirely to the cultivation 
of letters. His appointment, however, as royal envoy 
to the Pope gave him an opportunity to pass some 
time in Florence, where he associated with the learned 
set which had gathered around Lorenzo da Medici. 
Among the friends he entertained there, were Matteo 
Palmieri, Giannozzo Manetti and many other celebrities 
of the day. It was noted particularly that he had 
abandoned the English fashion of remaining several 
hours at table for the more sober Italian manner of 
living.^ The main purpose of his Florentine resi- 
dence was to have certain books copied there, to take 
back with him. Like all lovers of learning whose/ 
means permitted, he was a great collector of manu- 
scripts. His were said to be so numerous that, as it 
was impossible to send them overland, he was obhged 
to wait until a ship left for England. A supply of 
manuscripts was, however, a necessity at a time when 
printing was barely known, and public libraries still in 
their infancy. On his return, he retired to a living in 
the country, and there in the seclusion of his study 
passed the rest of his life, leaving at his death the 
manuscripts he had collected to the library of his 

curiously twisted when pronounced by Italians: thus Hawk- 
wood became P Acuta, Southampton, Antona. 
^ Vespasiano, p. 238. 



THE SCHOLAR 1 7 

church. His gentler nature, with its grain of selfish- 
ness and perhaps of scholarly reserve, felt out of touch 
with the world of the unlearned. He remained content 
amid his bookish surroundings, feehng unequal or un- 
willing to preach the gospel of the new learning. For 
this reason he was not so well known in England as in 
Italy, where he was celebrated alike for his scholarly 
attainments and the purity of his life. His Florentine 
biographer, Vespasiano da Bisticci, who knew him per- 
sonally, thought that few foreigners were his equals in 
character and cultivation. 

The small band of scholars. Grey, Free, Flemming, 
Gunthorpe and Tiptoft, who now crossed the Alps 
were to be the pioneers of the new movement. It 
certainly seems more than a mere coincidence that 
they were all Oxonians, while at the same time what- 
ever means then existed in England to acquire the 
rudiments of humanism were only to be found at 
Oxford. It is almost natural to suppose that the 
mediaeval traditions of the university had in part been 
superseded by others of more recent growth, and that 
the desire for learning encouraged by the facilities 
offered by Duke Humphrey's library brought about 
these new conditions. 

The reasons which drew English scholars to Italy 
are not hard to find. The new spirit of the Renais- 
sance, in passing over the Middle Ages and going 
straight back to antiquity, had effected a revolution 
in the intellectual world. Italy was conscious of this 
discovery long before the rest of Europe had awak- 



1 8 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

ened to it. Italian scholars had been the first to see 
the ancient world in its true light, and to study the 
classics, not as allegorical explanations of Christianity, 
but from the literary point of view. The Italian 
universities, moreover, were then eminent above all 
others ; philosophy, natural science, medicine, civil 
law and Greek, elsewhere almost unknown, flourished 
at Padua and Bologna. The brighter minds at Ox- 
ford, seeing beyond their own limited horizon and 
conscious of the progress in Italy, were anxious also 
to take part in this advance. 

Beyond the fact that they were all Oxonians, the 
early group of Englishmen who went to Italy in. 
search of the new humanism possessed other traits 
in common. Excepting Robert Flemming, all were 
Balliol men, which was also Duke Humphrey's college. 
Excepting Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, they were 
churchmen. It seems likely, too, that all were friends. 
One last point of resemblance was that all either 
studied or else were connected with the famous 
Guarino Veronese, who after long years of wandering 
had at length settled down at Ferrara, and was con- 
ducting there, under the protection of the house of 
Este, the most celebrated school of his age. His fame 
was then on the Hps of every Enghsh scholar; his 
name, it was said, was dear to all Enghshmen. It led 
John Free (better known as Phreas), almost from 
another world, to cross strange lands and unknown 
seas to seek him in Italy.^ John Tiptoft likewise, on 

1 Ms. 587 Bodleian, f. 165 et seq. 



THE SCHOLAR I9 

his return from Palestine, went especially to Ferrara to 
visit the aged scholar. Ludovico Carbo, in his funeral 
oration on the dead humanist, also bore witness to the 
number of scholars who, regardless of all difficulties, 
came from England itself to hear and acquire from him 
a polished elegance ; ^ and Battista Guarino, who later 
continued his father's work, wrote proudly that students 
were thronging to him from Britain itself,^ which was 
situated in the furthest confines of the earth. 

William Grey, a connection of the English royal 
family, was his first scholar of note. His name had 
already appeared in Beckynton's correspondence, 
which connects him with Duke Humphrey. Carbo, 
in the funeral oration delivered on Guarino, alluded 
to Grey as one well able to bear witness to the great- 
ness of the dead humanist. Grey had begun by study- 
ing logic and theology at Cologne, but had realized 
that it was only in Italy that the new learning could 
properly be pursued. After crossing the Alps, his 
first care when in Florence had been to order as many 
books as were there to be purchased. He then went 
to Padua, where he heard of Guarino's fame, and this 
took him to Ferrara, where he studied under the master, 
living at the same time in princely style, and maintain- 
ing Nicolo Perotto, then a young man, as a scholar 
in his own household. Henry the Sixth appointed 

1 Cited by Leland, De Sa-iptoribus Britannicis, p. 462. Vide 
Mattaire, A?inales Typographici, I, 91. 

'^ "Ex Britanniae ipsa, quce extra orbem terrarum posita est." 
— Vide Voigt, U, 261, note. 



20 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

him his proctor at the Curia, and later Pope Nicholas 
the Fifth selected Grey to fill the vacant bishopric 
of Ely. After remaining in the Royal Council until 
the king's death, he retired from public hfe and 
passed his remaining years in retirement, leaving his 
collection of manuscripts to BalHol.^ William Grey 
was among the first great EngHsh churchmen of the 
Renaissance whose interest in humanism was more than 
a passing fancy. He was not only a keen student 
himself, but his great wealth permitted him to follow 
Italian examples and be a patron to others less fortu- 
nate in that respect. He represented a type common 
enough in Italy, where learning formed so large a 
part of the churchman's life, where no prelate con- 
sidered his household complete without scholars in 
his retinue, and where a humanist like ^neas Sylvius 
had been raised to the papacy. But all this was 
almost unknown in England, and William Grey was 
among the very first to carry back to his native land 
the love of the new learning and the desire to assist 
its growth. 

John Free's career was typical in a different way of 
the life of the EngUsh scholar in Italy. William Grey 
had gone there as a great lord, who established a 
princely household wherever he went. John Free, on 
the other hand, represented the poor wandering stu- 
dent, who later raised his station in life by sheer force 

1 Among these were the works of Poggio, Guarino, Bruno, 
Petrarch and other humanists. Vide Coxe, Catalogus Codicum 
Collegiis Oxoiiiensibus, I, BalHol College. 



THE SCHOLAR 21 

of ambition and personal ability. It has been stated 
by Leiand the antiquary, that some Italian merchants 
whom Free met in his native town of Bristol induced 
him to cross the Alps. It seems more likely to sup- 
pose however that his patron WiUiam Grey advised 
Free as a promising student to go to Italy, offering, as 
stated by him, to aid him in his travels. Free's letters 
to his patron tell the story.^ He left England with 
only ten pounds in his possession, which he carried in 
bills of exchange ; barely six remained by the time he 
had reached Ferrara, and after purchasing the neces- 
sary food and clothes, a very small sum was left over. 
This he had spent, and poverty stared him in the face ; 
he swore to his patron he had not received a penny 
since leaving England. All he asked for was sufficient 
money to enable him to continue his work ; for who- 
ever wished to perfect himself in the humanities, he 
wrote, must first be freed from all mental worries, espe- 
cially such as related to the necessities of life. He 
was particularly anxious to be able to study, in order to 
help swell the scanty number of Englishmen then pro- 
ficient in Greek and Latin ; this, he wrote, would con- 
tribute to his patron's glory. The bishop of Ely sent the 
needed remittance, and for a time everything went well. 
Free however, who wished to translate something from 
the Greek, begged for an addition to his usual allow- 
ance in order to purchase the necessary texts.^ His 
complaints were frequent not only of his poverty, but 

1 Ms. 587 Bodleian. 
'^Jbid.,i. 162. 



22 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

of homesickness, as well, and the thought of having left 
friends and country. 

The new humanism also had its influence over him. 
Grey's nephew, who had been sent by his uncle to 
study in Italy, had died there. In attempting to con- 
sole his patron, Free made use of arguments taken 
from Petrarch ; he bade him remember that although 
nothing could prevent death, yet beyond its threshold 
were glory and everlasting fame. His letters plainly 
betrayed the Renaissance spirit, and were full of the 
expressions and feelings of Italian humanism. He 
spoke of men " of ancient faith and virtue " ; he called 
" Immortal God " to witness, and not the Blessed 
Virgin ; he paid a fitting tribute to the scholarly attain- 
ments of Valla. In every way he tried to show that he 
had left far behind him the scholastic traditions of the 
Middle Ages, and looked forward to the new ideals of 
the Renaissance. He was not only the most learned 
Englishman of his age, but the first who even attempted 
to reach the goal of universality Italy had created. In 
his love of learning he took up not only the classics and 
philosophy, but medicine and civil law.-^ In the classics 
he achieved considerable success, and his funeral ora- 

1 On the margin of f. i, Ms. CXXIV Ball. Coll. (a universal 
cosmography in the writing of John Free) is a note by a more 
recent hand. "This book on cosmography was written at 
Padua in Italy, by John Free of Bristol, who studied at Padua 
and at Rome and was a professed doctor in medicine, civil law 
and Greek." Free also wrote and compiled the first six books 
of Diodorus Siculus, perhaps from Poggio's translation. — Coxe, 



THE SCHOLAR 23 

tion on Guarino was highly praised for its Latinity by 
Carbo of Ferrara. His principal study, however, was 
probably medicine, which he taught for some years 
in different Italian cities. About 1465 he went to 
Rome, where he found a patron in John Tiptoft, 
Earl of Worcester, to whom he dedicated his Latin 
poetry and several translations from the Greek. 
For his scholarly attainments. Pope Paul the First 
granted him the bishopric of Bath and Wells, but he 
died, not without suspicion of poison, before his 
consecration. 

John Gunthorpe and Robert Flemming were among 
the other scholars who belong to this early generation. 
The former had been Free's companion in Italy. He 
too had collected there many books, most of which 
were later distributed among the colleges at Oxford.^ 
On his return to England he became royal chaplain 
and Dean of Wells where the deanery house built by 
him showed the Italian influence in its architecture.^ 
His remaining literary work was confined to a 
rhetoric,^ remarkable for its occasional use of Greek 
words and letters, and the minute analysis of the 
Latin parts of speech. Leland however mentions 
certain Latin epistles and poems also by his pen. 

Robert Flemming had perhaps been induced to visit 
Italy by his kinsman, Richard, who at the Council of 
Constance, where Italian humanism first crossed the 

1 Leland, Script. Brit., p. 463, also Leland, Collectanea, III, 16. 

2 Creighton, Early Renaissance, p. 29. 
8 Ms. 587 Bod. 



24 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 



1 

his I 



Alps, had distinguished himself by the violence of 
attacks on Wyclif.^ Flemming's desire for learning 
was strong enough to make him leave the cathedral 
of which he was the dean, to undertake the Italian 
journey. After visiting the famous universities and 
studying at Ferrara under Battista Guarino, he settled 
down for some years in Rome. There he formed a 
friendship with Platina, the papal historian and librarian 
of the Vatican, while from Sixtus the Fourth he ob- 
tained a preferment. He dedicated to the Pope his 
Lucubrationes Tiburtin(B, written at Tivoli, where he 
passed the warm summer months. This poem in 
heroic metre was probably the first important humanist 
verse written by any Englishman.^ In addition he 
compiled a Greek and Latin dictionary, no longer 
extant. The remaining years of his life were unevent- 
ful. After his return to England he settled at Lincoln, 
and on his death the manuscripts collected by him 
were left to the Oxford college which bore his 
cathedral's name. 

One more English scholar who belonged to this 
early group will be mentioned. John Tiptoft, Earl of 
Worcester, proved himself a quite different type of 
man from the others, whom he resembled only in his 
love of letters. He was revered in Italy as a second 

1 Voigt, II, 260. 

2 A few lines are cited by Leland, Script. Brit., p. 461. 

" Sane quisquis in hunc oculos defixerit acreis, 
In vultu facieque viri coeleste videbit 
Elucere aliquid majestatem verendam." 



THE SCHOLAR 2$ 

Maecenas, known alike for his scholarship and the zeal 
with which he collected manuscripts. Like the Italian 
despots of that age, he united a fondness for learning 
and patronage of the arts with tyranny and oppression. 
He has often been considered the first example of an 
"Italianate Englishman," a type so common a hundred 
years later. This is untrue in so far as the name stands 
for the affected dandyism of Elizabethan courtiers. On 
the other hand, he represented the blood and iron of 
fifteenth century Italy, with its energy impatient of 
restraint, eager only to accomplish its end, heedless 
of difficulty. He represented, too, its zeal for learning, 
perhaps the one love in which it was sincere. 

Tiptoft had gone to Padua to continue his Latin 
studies ; afterwards he visited the aged Guarino at 
Ferrara, and then went to Florence to have manuscripts 
copied. Everything interested him, and arm in arm 
with the bookseller, Vespasiano, he saw the sights of 
the city, and even heard John Argyropulos lecture.^ 
In Rome Tiptoft is said to have caused Pius the Second 
to weep with joy at hearing such eloquence flow from 
EngUsh lips.^ He met scholars as well, in Italy, while 
humanists like Francesco d'Arezzo dedicated their 
works to him. 

No mean scholar himself, he is supposed to have 
translated into English, Cicero's essay on friendship, 
and Caesar's commentaries. His great wealth, more- 
over, allowed him to take back with him such a 
number of books that he was said to have despoiled the 
1 Vespasiano, p. 403. ^ Voigt, II, 258. 



26 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 



1 



libraries of Italy to enrich those of England. Oxford 
shared in his benefactions and gratefully acknowledged 
them. Through him the authorities wrote^, the uni- 
versity approached nearer to his Padua since the 
fame of his attainments, and with it of their own, had 
become known to the Itahans, the masters of elo- 
quence. Just as no reward could have been too 
great for the late Duke Humphrey who had favored 
their cause, there now was no one worthier than him- 
self to succeed to his place in their affections. They 
felt it time for others than Italians to enjoy his fame. 
Such lavish praise did not fail to obtain its reward. 
A letter of some years later mentioned the fact that 
the earl had left Oxford a large number of books.^ 
Caxton also eulogized Tiptoft's love of letters,^ 
and praised his learning and cultivation of the arts ; 
like praise can be found as well in the Canterbury 
Necrology.^ Unfortunately the less pleasant side to 
his life earned for him the title of the "butcher of 
England." He was especially hated for introducing 
the so-called Paduan law, which attempted to 
substitute the Roman law, revived at Bologna and 
Padua, for the common law. This change, while 
of advantage to trained jurists, seemed like an 
infringement on the rights of the poorer people 

1 Epist. Acad., II, 354. 2 md,^ \\^ 290. 

s Leland, Script. Brit., p. 480. 

* " Vir undecumque doctissimus, omnium liberalium artium 
divinarumque simul ac secularium litterarum scientia peri- 
tissimus." — Cited by Gasquet, Eve of the Reformatiouy p. 23, 
note 3. 



THE SCHOLAR 2/ 

who had been accustomed to plead for themselves. 
Tiptoft was hated in consequence, for having introduced 
what was considered a foreign and tyrannous system 
in opposition to the liberties of England. The im- 
portant judicial positions he occupied permitted, 
moreover, a free rein to his cruelty, and when, during 
the civil wars, he fell a prisoner in his enemies' hands, 
all alike demanded his execution, on account of his 
having oppressed the people and curtailed their just 
rights. To the Italian priest, who accompanied him to 
the place of execution, he apologized for his cruelties, 
on the ground of their having been necessary for the 
safety of the state, — an explanation which satisfied 
neither priest nor people. The examples for his hfe's 
work were both Italian. On the one hand, he had 
found in Italy models of tyrannous government and 
the absolute rule of the prince. To carry this into 
effect he introduced an alien system into England, 
the purpose of which was to elevate the sovereign's 
power. On the other hand, as a cultivated scholar, 
an eloquent orator, a collector of manuscripts and a 
patron of learning, he also found examples in Italy 
where once he had gratified his tastes. 

What may be called the second period in English 
humanism came to an end with Tiptoft's death, 
even though Flemming and Gunthorpe lived many 
years longer. Although those who had been its prin- 
cipal actors accomplished but little, they forged a 
hnk in the development of the English Renaissance, 
and showed that the new learning at Oxford, far from 



28 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

being a sudden outburst, was silently prepared by a 
small group of scholars. Disturbances at home and 
wars abroad proved obstacles, however, to the student's 
life, while, furthermore, no commanding names lent 
lustre to the period. Excepting as they distinguished 
themselves in other fields, the scholars of this time 
have all disappeared from memory. 

England was still unripe for the new learning. The 
only chance for its success lay in concentration of 
effort. But the young and ambitious band of Balliol 
scholars who set out for Italy, full of hope, did not 
return to Oxford, where alone in England their work 
might have borne fruit. United in their early zeal, 
they separated when the immediate goal had been 
reached, and in consequence failed in their work. 
John Free, the most learned and gifted of all, died 
before returning home. Tiptoft, who shared their love 
for letters, was led away from scholarly pursuits to 
perish miserably on the scaffold, while the others i| 
passed the remainder of their lives apart from each 
other in retirement. Their labor, however, was not in 
vain. The task they accomplished was to provide 
books for later students to use ; to bring back with 
them, even though sterile, the learning of the Renais- 
sance, and show that Greek and natural science,^ 
philosophy and medicine, were all within their reach. 
John Free, at least, proved the type of humanist to be 
possible for Englishmen. But most important of all, 
they pointed out that guidance for the new learning 
must be sought for in Italy itself. 

'i 
I 



THE SCHOLAR 29 



IV 

The fifteenth century was already nearing the end, 
with the new learning in England still in its infancy. 
Its growth, although slow, had nevertheless been 
constant during the fifty years before Oxford began 
to emerge from mediaevalism. In the face of many 
difficulties, there had been a steady movement in the 
direction of progress. A second generation of Oxoni- 
ans now found the task before them of laying the foun- 
dations of English scholarship, and beginning in their 
own country the study of the humanities as it had 
flourished for a century in Italy. 

William SeUing of All Souls, a Benedictine monk, 
may almost be called the dean of this younger gen- 
eration. With another monk, Wilham Hadley, he had 
first gone to Italy in 1464. The two studied together 
at Padua and Bologna, and met, among other scholars, 
Politian and Chalcondylas. (Selling on his return gave 
particular attention to Greek, which was still unknown 
in England. He took back with him many ancient 
manuscripts,^ and tried to make a centre of learning out 
of the monastery at Canterbury, of which he became 
the prior. The first real facilities in England to learn 
Greek were to be found there. He himself translated 
into Latin a work of St. John Chrysostom's, probably 
the first Greek book translated in that century on 
English soil. The wandering friar of the Middle 

1 Leland, Script. Brit., p. 482. 



30 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

Ages, the teacher of humanism and the scholar diplo- 
mat of the Renaissance were the elements in Sell- 
ing's nature. As a diplomat he accompanied the 
embassy sent to the Pope by Henry the Seventh to 
announce his succession to the throne, and delivered 
a Latin oration before him and the College of Cardi- 
nals. As master moreover of the Christ Church 
School, he first taught Thomas Linacre the classics. 
He was thus one of the earliest English examples of 
the all-round man of broad culture, so frequent in 
Italy in the Renaissance. Prominent alike in scholar- 
ship and diplomacy, as a churchman and a teacher, 
he yet failed to excel in any capacity. 

With the work of three Oxford friends, Thomas 
Linacre, William Grocyn and Thomas Latimer, modem 
Enghsh scholarship really began. Unlike their prede- 
cessors, who after studying in Italy, had accomplished 
little, both because the time was not ripe and their 
efforts were too scattered to produce any effect, they 
centred their work at Oxford and taught what they 
had themselves learned across the Alps. After the 
new learning had once rested on a firm foundation at 
the university, it was an easy task for its usefulness to 
be acknowledged by the rest of England. 

WiUiam Grocyn, the eldest of the three friends, had 
been a fellow of New College, and afterwards preben- 
dary of Lincoln Cathedral, where Robert Flemming 
was dean. From him came probably Grocyn's de- 
sire to visit Italy. Most of the Italian humanists of 
Flemming's generation were dead, but new ones con- 



THE SCHOLAR 3 1 

tinued worthily the old traditions, although the favor- 
ite city for study was no longer Ferrara, but Florence. 
That William Grocyn, already a man of forty and a 
scholar of some reputation, should have considered it 
necessary to cross the Alps in search of learning, shows 
how much Italy had then to offer and Englishmen 
wished to learn. 

Linacre set out in 1488 to study under Politian,^ 
then the acknowledged master among Italian schol- 
ars. There had been many learned humanists before 
him, but all had lacked the taste and perfect style, 
which he united to his great erudition. The new 
method taught only by him attracted to his lectures 
/'students from all Europe,^ among whom were Grocyn, 
"I Latimer and Linacre. Linacre, after his first school- 
ing at Canterbury, went to Oxford and then accom- 
panied his former master, William SelHng, on his 
embassy to the Pope. He was left, however, at Bologna 
in the care of Politian, whom he later followed to 
Florence. From him Linacre acquired his living 
knowledge of the classics, and the purity of style for 
which he was celebrated ; for Politian boasted of his 
students, that they knew Greek as if the ancient Athe- 
nians had settled in Florence. Lorenzo de' Medici, 
the patron of the school, allowed him moreover (per- 
haps on account of having been with Selling's em- 
bassy) to attend Politian's private instruction to the 
young princes, Piero and Giovanni, who afterward 

1 Erasmus, Epist., CCCI. 

2 Prezziner, Studio di Firenze, I, 162 et seq. 



32 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

became Leo the Tenth. Many years later, the English 
scholar dedicated his edition of Galen to Leo, to recall, 
as he said, the common studies of their youth. 

After a year in Florence, Linacre visited the other 
Italian centres of learning. In Rome he met Aldus, 
who held him ever afterwards in high regard and was 
later to pubhsh his books. While studying Plato in 
the Vatican Library, he also became acquainted with 
the great Hellenist, Hermolaus Barbarus, who urged 
on him and his two English companions the task of 
translating Aristotle into Latin ; Linacre alone is said 
to have completed his share of this work.^ The 
study of Aristotle probably led him to devote himself 
to natural science and especially to the medical writers 
of antiquity ; later he graduated a doctor of medicine 
at Padua. To perfect himself further in these pursuits, 
he studied at Vicenza, under the celebrated scholar 
and physician, Leonicenus, who had been the restorer 
of the medical treatment of Hippocrates through 
observation, which then was practised only by Ital- 
ians; for the great development of medicine in the 
Renaissance came from the rediscovery in Italy of 
the methods of the ancients. Six years were spent by 
Linacre in his efforts to acquire there the new sciences. 
When finally he was ready to depart, he built an 
altar of stones dedicated to Italy, bearing on it the 
words, Sancta Mater Stiidiorum. 

Cornelio VitelH, a wandering Italian scholar, was 
called by Poly^ore Vergil the first teacher of 
1 Collectanea Oxford., II, 346. 



THE SCHOLAR 33 

humanities {bonas Uttei-as) at Oxford, and it has even 
been suggested that Grocyn and Linacre may have 
studied under him. Both Erasmus and George Lily 
wrote that Grocyn taught Greek before his Itahan jour- 
ney,^ but no evidence to this effect can be found. It 
was certainly not until 1490, the date of Grocyn's 
return from Italy, that his teaching of Greek at Ox- 
ford began to exert its influence, and all indications 
point to its having been taught then for the first time. 
The materials for the study of the new learning had 
for some time been accumulating at Oxford, until 
everything was ready. In the university library were 
the books which Duke Humphrey and the Earl of 
Worcester donated, while Grey and Free had been 
similar benefactors to Balliol, and Flamming to Lin- 
coln College. In this way, the discoveries of Italian 
scholarship had become known at Oxford, while the 
methods of the humanists were likewise brought back 
by English students on their return from Italy .^ 

The close friendship which existed between Grocyn 
and Linacre induced them to work together, once 
they were back at Oxford. Humanism, though affect- 
ing them equally in their love for the classics, had in- 
fluenced each one in a different manner. It led the 
former to scriptural criticism ; William Grocyn had 
not taken up the new studies until comparatively late 

^ Erasmus, Epist., CCCLXIII. 

^ Among other books in Grocyn's own library were the works 
of Ficino, Valla, Filelfo, Perotti, Petrarch and Boccaccio, Col- 
lectanea, II, 317 et seq. 



34 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

in life. In spite of having been the introducer of 
Greek at Oxford, he always remained half a school- 
man ; even Erasmus had to admire the wide extent 
of his scholastic training.^ He did not, however, 
allow this to blind him to the merits of the new 
learning. With a rare devotion to the cause of schol- 
arship, he gathered in Italy the fruits of its best in- 
struction to expound them later to those still immersed 
in mediaeval traditions. In the face of many obstacles 
cast in his way, he succeeded in establishing at Oxford 
the study of Greek. 

The fame of Grocyn, besides resting on his reputa- 
tion as a teacher, resulted also from his lectures on 
the works of the so-called Dionysius the Areopagite, 
which marked the beginnings of biblical criticism in 
England, and showed the effect of his own humanistic 
studies. He began by vigorously attacking Lorenzo 
Valla, who had disputed the authenticity of the work ; 
but realizing his error, with characteristic frankness he 
openly acknowledged it and retracted. 

Little is now left to confirm the extraordinary repu- 
tation Grocyn enjoyed as a humanist. He shared the 
distaste of the other scholars of his age for appearing 
in print ; excepting an epigram, nothing has been pre- 
served of his writings save a letter written in 1499 
to his friend Aldus, the Venetian printer,^ in which he 
thanked him for the " singular kindness " shown his best 
friend Linacre, who had just returned to England, and 
congratulated him on completing the first publication 

1 Epist., XIV. 2 Cited in Collectanea, II, 351. 



THE SCHOLAR 35 

of the Greek text of Aristotle by " that extremely in- 
genious artifice which you have invented for spreading 
Greek literature by means of the press. . . . Go on 
then, my Aldus, with this work and prosper." 

There were two sides to William Grocyn ; in his 
nature the spirit of the Middle Ages blended with that 
of the Renaissance. On the one hand was the school- 
man and the quiet recluse, who, after satisfying his 
thirst for knowledge in Italy, returned to settle down 
in almost monastic seclusion at Oxford. On the other, 
was the humanist, the theological critic, the introducer 
of Greek. It was this which has entitled him to a 
place in the foremost ranks of English scholarship, 
and almost justified the verdict which makes him 
share with his friend Linacre the glory of beginning 
the English Renaissance of learning. Unlike the 
latter, however, he lived within a small circle, caring 
little for the applause of the world, but known to 
his friends as '' the most upright and best of all the 
Britons." ^ 

Thomas Linacre, the first great Enghsh humanist 
and the foremost physician of the time, was a different 
type of man. What John Free attempted in the pre- 
vious generation, Linacre had accomplished. For the 
first time England found a universal scholar who, like 
the great Italians of the fifteenth century, was learned 
in all branches of knowledge. He was a humanist in 
every sense of the word ; although his learning was 
essentially secular, he was skilled in ancient dialectic 

1 Erasmus, Epist., CH. 



36 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

and rhetoric, no less than in the classics and sciences. 
It was even questioned of him "whether he was a 
better Latinist or Grecian, a better grammarian or 
physician." 

On his return from Italy, Linacre had lectured at 
Oxford, and with Grocyn taught such students as More, 
Colet and Erasmus. He wrote as well as taught, and 
his book on grammatical distinctions in Latin — a line 
of work already accomplished by Valla and Perotti — 
produced a considerable effect in England, where noth- 
ing of its kind had previously been attempted.^ His 
reputation increased, and about the year 1500 he was 
called to court to be tutor to Prince Arthur, who died, 
however, shortly afterward. Neither his fame nor 
Grocyn's was confined to England, but spread to the 
other countries of Europe. The two were brought 
into especial prominence by the death of the great fif- 
teenth century humanists, who left no Italian scholars to 
take their places. The new learning had, however, 
crossed the Alps, and now, firmly rooted in the different\ 
countries of Europe, united once more the learnedj 
world, insuring for its leaders an international celebrity! 
Vives the Spaniard, Lascaris the Greek, and the French- 
man Budaeus, to say nothing of his own pupil Erasmus, 
all joined in praising Linacre. Aldus, in publishing 
his edition of the Sphere of Proclus, regretted that 
Linacre had not sent him more books to print. He 
paid a striking tribute to the new English scholars who 
were now surpassing their masters. Admiring their 

^ Hallam, Literature of Eur ope ^ I, 344. 




N^N 




' '^'^^/tiltni^/^'^'^.^^i 



M<-^4tij^ ' 



Iftmr^ certt*yfp^. ifUfiiiuy-l<^^'^t 



//<'///</■ 



I .J/ //^/£i:^ 



1 



THE SCHOLAR 37 

eloquence and style, he expressed the hope that their 
example might shame the Italian philosophers out of 
their uncultured mode of writing, so that from Britain 
itself, whence formerly there had issued a barbarous and 
rude literature, which threatened the Italian sanctuary 
of knowledge, true aid to learning might now come.^ 

Linacre had been able to cultivate, even if he had 
not acquired in Italy, his taste for medicine and the 
natural sciences. There had been other classical 
scholars, but he was the first English scientist and 
physician of distinction. On his return to Oxford he 
is supposed to have lectured on medicine as well as on 
other subjects ; Erasmus considered him the intro- 
ducer of medical science in England.^ His translation 
of Galen began its classical study there ; this was also 
the first work of a Greek author printed in that 
country. Aldus desired to pubhsh other scientific 
books by him ; but Linacre shared the dishke to ap- 
pear in print. He later became prominent in London 
through his medical practice, and succeeded the Italian 
Battista de Boeria as court-physician, attending the king 
with the other doctors, Fernando de Vittoria and John 
Chamber, who had also studied medicine at Padua.^ 

Linacre had felt the need of adequate facihties in 
England for scientific studies, which could then only 

1 Cited in Collectanea, II, 347. Vide E. Legrand, Biblio- 
graphie Hellenique, II, 396. 

2 F.pist., CCVII. 

3 J. N. Johnson, Linacre, pp. 170, 279; Marini Transcripts^ 
Brit. Mus., XXXVII, 826. 



38 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

be properly pursued in Italy. Before him, the practice 
of medicine in England had been chiefly in the hands 
of charlatans. To remedy this, he left the fortune he 
had accumulated, for the foundation of medical chairs 
at both universities ; and to dignify further the profes- 
sion,^ he established the College of Physicians, which 
was modelled on similar Italian institutions. The 
lectureships he endowed were only realized in a 
modified form, without embracing the wide scope he 
had mapped out for them. His public spirit and fore- 
sight in regard to the future of science made him, 
however, a benefactor of the nation. He was regarded 
generally as the first English type of universal humanist. 
He corresponded with foreign scholars in other lands ; 
his real work lay in teaching to his countrymen the 
lessons he had learned in Italy. With him, the ex- 
ample of the scholar whose knowledge should rest on 
a broad secular foundation, and embrace the wide range 
of the arts and sciences, was brought over to England 
from across the Alps. Erasmus, writing to Latimer, said 
that had he only Linacre or Tunstall as his teacher, 
he would not seek Italy .^ It was no longer necessary 
for scholars to go there ; the new learning had been 
definitely established in England ; the new type of 
scholar now flourished there as well. 

William Latimer was the last of the three Oxford 
friends who had studied together in Florence. He is 
known chiefly by his friends, whose dislike for appear- 

1 Q^Syxs,, De Antiquitate Cantabrigiensis Academice, II, 126. 

2 Epist. CCCLXIII. 



THE SCHOLAR 39 

ing in print he felt even more strongly ; Erasmus 
compared him on account of this to a miser hoard- 
ing his gold.^ His scholarship, however, was greatly 
appreciated, especially by Erasmus. Bishop Fisher, 
eager in spite of his advanced years to learn Greek, 
wished him to be his teacher ; but he advised instead 
that one be sent for from Italy.^ 

It will scarcely be necessary to go through the in- 
creasing list of English scholars who had either studied 
in Italy, or else betrayed the influence of Itahan schol- 
arship. The humanist movement in England was 
well under way, and each year saw eager students has- 
tening to Padua and Bologna. Even at the provincial 
university of Siena, out of some three hundred students 
in the school of philosophy, one-half were foreigners, 
among whom were English, Germans, Portuguese, and 
even Swedes.^ The greater number who returned to 
their homes helped in silence to build up the new 
humanism and spread the learning they had acquired 
in Italy. A few remained, however, in their adopted 
country. Before the close of the fifteenth century one 
Thomas Penketh " for his admired learning and elo- 
quence " had even been called from Oxford, it was 
said, to teach at Padua."* 

Several differences, as well as resemblances, appear 
between the two groups of Oxford scholars who went 

1 EpisL CCCLXni. 

2 MuUinger, History of Cambridge, I, 519, note. 
^ Zdekauer, Studio di Siena^ p. 96. 

* S. Lewkenor, Discourse of Foreign Cities, 1600. 



40 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

to Italy in search of the new learning. The first 
devoted themselves only to individual study. Their 
scholarship, however, was neither so profound nor so 
broad as that of their successors, who were teachers as 
well as students. The first had failed when they tried 
to encourage the new learning by offering only their own 
individual example. The others succeeded because 
they built on a surer foundation. In both instances 
nearly all concerned in the movement were church- 
men ; but the secular tendency was gradually growing, 
and when Linacre took orders in his old age, it was 
rather to enable him to obtain preferment than for 
any other reason. Both groups were composed en- 
tirely of Oxonians, but while the first (excepting John 
Tiptoft) kept up their connection with the university 
only through gifts and bequests of books, the latter 
showed in their life work a far greater academic devo- 
tion. Their task was not only to bring back but 
actually to teach their countrymen the studies of 
Greek and science, medicine and Biblical criticism, 
which Italian humanism had opened to the world. 
By their instruction, as well as by their personal exam- 
ple, they created the new type of EngHsh scholar, who 
was to equal his Italian model in learning, while he 
surpassed him in purity of life. The efforts of this 
small band of scholars succeeded at last in firmly estab- 
lishing the new learning at Oxford. Before them, 
it had been almost impossible to place it on the secure 
foundation necessary. Englishmen lacked interest in 
humanism so long as civil anarchy, desolation and 



THE SCHOLAR 4 1 

lawlessness conspired to forbid the necessary repose for 
scholarly labors. All that could be hoped for, and had 
in fact been accomplished, was to preserve what little 
learning was left from earlier generations. The day 
came, however, when the strong arm of the Tudor 
monarchy made itself felt through the land, and peo- 
ple realized that the age of civil strife was over, and 
the arts could now be practised in peace. Amid the 
novel feeling of quiet and repose, the new learning 
developed and prospered. Just as in Italy scholars had 
lived under the patronage of princes, who granted them 
adequate rewards for their labors, so humanism, newly 
introduced into England, was fostered and encouraged 
by Henry the Seventh, first of a new race of English 
monarchs. 



Already in the early days of English humanism, a 
definite growth can be traced, marked by separate 
stages of development. This growth coincided for a 
time with the extension of Italian influence, and was 
in part its result. To the very end of the fifteenth 
century, and even later, Italy remained the fountain- 
head of the new learning. Yet England, as a whole, 
was still strangely insensible to Italian scholarship, 
which flourished only at Oxford. During the sixteentlij 
century however, a great transformation took placel 
On the one hand, the silent preparatory work of pre- 
vious years was to spread beyond the narrow limits of 
the university. On the other, the single dominant in- 



42 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

fluence of Italy, which had been till then the living 
breath of the new learning, was greatly to diminish, 
while other countries in part took its place. This 
change was neither so sudden nor so unexpected as 
might appear. The diffusion of the new learning be- 
yond the college halls, was largely the work of Oxford 
men trained in the methods of Italian scholarship. 
The decay of learning in Italy at the same time, caused 
Grocyn and Linacre to be regarded by the ItaHans 
themselves as the successors to their own great 
humanists. The foreign scholars who had been 
trained in Florence, Bologna and Padua were now 
to take up the work where it had left off in Italy, 
and spread the Renaissance learning in their own 
countries. 

The desire to move in a broader sphere than the 
narrow world of Oxford can be observed in Linacre. 
The great connecting link, however, between court 
and university was to be Sir Thomas More. His 
task was to foster the desire for learning in circles 
where hitherto it had been unknown. His training 
and nature had fitted him for this work. As a young 
boy he had been sent to Oxford by Archbishop Mor- 
ton, and had there learned Greek from Grocyn and 
Linacre,^ with both of whom he formed enduring 
friendships. " Grocyn is in your absence the master 
of my life ; Linacre, the director of my studies," he 
wrote Colet.^ Still other Hnks than the affection he 

1 Erasmus, Epist.^ DXI. 

2 T. Stapleton, Tres ThotJice, p. 23. 



THE SCHOLAR 43 

bore his masters bound him to Italy. Not only had 
Colet and Lily, with both of whom he was intimate, 
studied there, but he himself conceived a hero-worship 
for Pico della Mirandola, whose life he translated into 
English. Among his best friends, moreover, was tlie 
Luccan merchant, Antonio Bonvisi, to whom before 
being led off to execution he wrote in most affec- 
tionate terms, saying he had been a son rather than a 
guest in his house. 

The opportunity soon arose for More to prove himself 
a friend of the new learning. Its very success had 
stirred up a violent opposition in Oxford itself. The 
contest came over Greek, as being the most impor- 
tant of the new studies brought from Italy. To know 
Greek was the next thing to heresy in the minds 
of many who regarded its literature as unorthodox.^ 
Others, skilled in dialectics, were hostile, because un- 
willing to take up a new study in which their former 
work would prove of no use. Some, too, regarded all 
innovations as dangerous. The opponents of the 
" Grecians " united, therefore, under the name of 
"Trojans," and ridiculed in the streets those who pur- 
sued the new learning.^ A priest who should have 
delivered a Lenten sermon preached in its place an 
invective against Greek and other polite literature.^ 
William Tyndale, writing only a few years later, re- 
called the fact that the disciples of Duns Scotus " raged 

1 Jebb, Erasmus, p. 41. 

2 Maxwell-Lyte, History of Oxford, p. 435 et seq. 
^ Jortin, Erasmus, HI, 359. 



44 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

in every pulpit against Greek, Latin and Hebrew,"^ 
and proclaimed openly that if there existed only a 
single copy in the world of Terence or Virgil, they 
would bum it, though it cost them their lives. 

At this point, More wrote a letter to the university 
authorities, directed against mediaeval scholasticism, 
which severely censured those who desired it once more. 
After presenting strong arguments in favor of the new 
learning, he warned them that further opposition 
would alienate the favor of their chancellor Arch- 
bishop Warham, their patron Cardinal Wolsey, and 
even the king, who was much interested in the pro- 
gress of letters.^ For More, besides awakening the 
court to the new learning, was also high in the royal 
favor, the king often sending for him to converse on 
learned subjects. It was through the influence, too, 
of More and Pace that the king took up the matter 
and finally silenced the Trojans. 

Erasmus and Colet were among the other famous 
pupils of Grocyn and Linacre. The former went to 
Oxford because he thought it no longer necessary 
to proceed to Italy for classical learning, which could 
then better be obtained in England than anywhere else. 
There were fewer good scholars in Italy, he wrote, than 
in the days of Latimer's youth. In his own judg- 
ment whoever was really learned was an Italian, even 
though born among savages.^ It was not till later 

1 Tyndale, Works, III, 75. 2 Erasmus, Epist, CCCCXIII. 
^ " Mihi Italus est quisque probe doctus est etiamsi fit apud 
Juvernos natus." Ibid. 



THE SCHOLAR 45 

that Erasmus went to Italy, accompanying the sons of 
Battista de Boeria, the king's chief physician. His 
Hfe however, is too European to belong distinctively 
to Enghsh scholarship. It was otherwise with John 
Colet, whom Erasmus regarded as a leader among 
learned men.-^ After studying at Oxford, wishing to 
follow in the footsteps of his masters, he too visited 
Italy, attracted rather by a general love of culture 
than any great desire to learn Greek. Nothing really 
is known of the details of the three years he spent 
there, although it has been suggested that he may 
have met Savonarola. The puritan in his nature seems, 
however, to have been brought out by Italy. He was 
greatly impressed by the contrast presented between 
the corruption of the church and the lives of '' certain 
monks of true wisdom and piety." ^ What chiefly 
influenced his later life was the Neo-Platonism and 
scriptural criticism of the Italian scholars. Returning 
to Oxford he lectured on Paul's Epistles, abandoning 
the allegorical interpretation of the Middle Ages for a 
free exposition of the whole. He compared the refer- 
ences of St. Paul to the state of Roman society, and 
rejected in consequence much of the doctrine of verbal 
inspiration, thus adopting the new historical method 
introduced in Italy. In these lectures, as in his work 
on Dionysius the Areopagite, he cited no schoolmen, 
but referred frequently to Ficino and Pico della Miran- 
dola, quoting freely from the Platonic theology of the 
former, while often borrowing the latter's theological 
1 EpisU XLI. 2 ibid.^ CCCCXXXV. 



46 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

doctrines.^ Colet was one of the first, with Grocyn, to 
criticise in England the subject-matter of the Scrip- 
tures, as Valla had done in Italy. In a different 
direction, his work in beginning the study of the new 
learning at the public schools was analogous to what 
More accomplished at the court. The wealth he in- 
herited from his father was made use of by him to 
found a school in St. Paul's churchyard. WilHam Lily, 
the grammarian, who had studied in Italy under 
Sulpitius and Pomponius Lsetus, was its first head- 
master. There Colet and Lily put into practice the 
new principles of education, and gave an example soon 
followed by other schools. 

The direct influence of Italy on English scholar- 
ship may be said to have ended with the generation 
succeeding Grocyn and Linacre. At the same time, 
amid the blending of continental influences then 
apparent in English culture, it would be unfair not to 
assign proper importance to the strong leavening of 
Italian thought and scholarly training. The system 
which Italy had built up, at a time when the rest of 
Europe was still in the darkness of the Middle Ages, 
was not to be shattered in a day. Its intellectual in- 
fluence could not so quickly be shaken off. The 
brilliant scholars in the other countries of Western 
Europe who then began to make their appearance, 
had all imbibed the Itahan humanistic training, either 
directly themselves or else through nameless masters, 

1 Vide Seebohm, Oxford Reformers, pp. 39, 151 et seq. 
Lupton, Life of Colet, p, 51 et seq. 



THE SCHOLAR 47 

who transplanted it to their own land. The Italian 
Renaissance had moreover, given a vast impetus to 
learning, which in the Middle Ages was only to be 
found at the universities and in the higher ranks of 
the clergy. The courts of Europe now welcomed it 
with open arms, and everywhere men sought to gather 
its best fruits, whose ancestors had either scorned it as 
worthy only of poor clerks or else ignored it entirely. 
Largely owing to such changes as these, as well as 
to progress in other directions, scholars who had in 
former years been either of the academic or ecclesi- 
astical types, were now divided into many classes. 
A few of the main paths along which scholars found 
their way will very briefly be outHned. •. 

The wandering scholar was among the commonest 
of mediaeval types. He had often been a man with- 
out a country, who found refuge at the universities, 
or else with patrons of learning. In the Renaissance, 
Erasmus, whom four nations claim, was the greatest 
example of the wanderer. An Englishman, by the name 
of Florence Volusenus, was of this type, although 
on an inferior scale. At the same time that he sent 
political information to Thomas Cromwell, he was 
in the patronage of the Cardinal of Lorraine, and 
then of Cardinal du Bellay. His real interest in life 
was supplied however by scholarship. He tried to 
go to Italy to gain his livelihood at a university;^ 
failing in this, he was appointed, by Sadolet's influ- 
ence, to a professorship of humanities at Carpentras, 

^ Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, IX, 573. 



48 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 



where, save for occasional visits to Italy, he passed 
the remaining years of his life. A similar exile was 
Peter Bisset, a graduate of St. Andrew's, who at the 
time of his death was professor of canon law at 
Bologna. Both men exemplified certain ideals of 
the age, which often placed learning above every- 
thing else, and made the scholar find a home in the 
land where his intellectual tastes could best be 
gratified. 

Antiquarianism was a new direction the Renais- 
sance gave to learning, and John Leland, if not so 
early as William Worcester, was yet the first great 
English antiquary. Conforming to the fashion then 
beginning, he had been on the grand tour; and after 
studying abroad, where he met some of the distin- 
guished humanists, he returned with a good knowl- 
edge of Italian. Emulating Bembo and his school, 
he showed his scholarly tastes in his works on the 
writers of his own country no less than in his Latin 
verse. He was also a tutor to the Duke of Norfolk's 
son, for many well-known scholars taught then in 
the households of the nobility. The influence of such 
masters contributed as much as anything else to foster- 
ing the zeal for learning among the upper classes. On 
the other hand the new interest in learning found its 
way to court and royal patronage through the efforts of 
a few like Sir Thomas More. Of greater importance 
than Leland was Sir John Cheke, Secretary of State 
and tutor to Edward the Sixth. He was perhaps the 
finest example of a scholar selected to teach men 



^ 



THE SCHOLAR 49 

of great position. He had also been long in Italy, 
especially at Padua, where he lectured and seems, 
moreover, to have exercised a kind of general supervi- 
sion over all Englishmen in residence there.^ When 
he returned, he became known as one of the chief 
promoters of Greek learning in England. What his 
real influence was with Edward is difficult to say, as 
that monarch's short reign offered few opportunities 
for his personal advancement of culture. The king's 
library, however, contained many Italian books,- urged 
on him, perhaps, by his tutor. 

The study of Greek, once established at Oxford by 
Grocyn and Linacre, had not been long in spreading 
to Cambridge, where, owing to Bishop Fisher's influ- 
ence, it was allowed to develop in peace. Erasmus, 
then professor of divinity, taught it unofficially,^ but 
the first real teacher of Greek was Richard Croke, who, 
Hke many Italians, united learning with diplomacy. 
In this double capacity he had been sent to Italy at 
the suggestion of Cranmer, to collect opinions regard- 
ing the king's divorce, and had there visited the chief 
centres of learning. 

The early work done in science by Free and Linacre 
was continued by Thomas Starkey, a Magdalen man, 
who, after studying at Padua, became a lecturer at 
Oxford. The famous Dr. Caius had also been at 
Padua; later in Hfe he founded at Cambridge the 

IT. Wilson, The Three Orations of Demosthenes, Preface. 
2 Nichols, Literary Retnains of Edward F/, I, cccxxxv. 
2 Jebb, p. 27 et seq. 
£ 



50 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

medical college, designed on an Italian model, which 
still bears his name ; among its provisions was one 
which stipulated that holders of travelHng medical 
scholarships should be required to study at Padua, 
Bologna, Montepulciano, or Paris.^ 

The Italian Renaissance was first known in England 
in the scholarly world. Its progress in the arts, in 
social life, in a hundred ways, did not come until after 
it had penetrated the intellectual classes. What may 
therefore be called the first period of Italian influence 
in England, beginning in the second quarter of the 
fifteenth century and lasting for a hundred years, was 
essentially a scholarly influence which found its home 
at the universities. The initial impulse toward the 
new learning was thus given by Italy to England. By 
holding up its own example as a model, Italy formed 
the English secular type of scholar and directed his 
intellectual interests. Its influence, however, in the 
scholarly world was one of foundation rather than of 
development. It was paramount in assisting the one ; 
it diminished with the growth of the other. It was 
practically over with the generation which followed 
after Grocyn and Linacre, when English scholarship 
was developing along its own lines, barely affected by 
foreign influence. Its purpose had already been ac- 
complished in the very beginning of the sixteenth 
century. The new learning of the Italian Renaissance 
had been transplanted to England, the new type of 
humanist established there. The influence of Italy 
1 Mullinger, II, 163. 



THE SCHOLAR 5 I 

first felt by Oxford men had spread thence to Cam- 
bridge, to the court, the homes of the nobihty, the 
pubhc schools, and by degrees through all England. 



VI 

The patronage of learning which has always been 
one of the proudest boasts of the Catholic Church 
existed especially in the Renaissance, when a genuine 
love for it on the part of churchmen atoned for many 
other shortcomings. The higher clergy, moreover, were 
mostly university men, whose scholarly interests had 
been awakened early in life, and who later were placed 
in a position to show their gratitude. An account of 
ItaHan influence on the new learning in England 
therefore requires some brief mention at least of the 
great churchmen who aided in fostering the move- 
ment. 

The many ecclesiastical ties which bound all Europe 
to Rome had long familiarized the English clergy with 
Italy. Already in early mediaeval times an Englishman 
named Nicholas Breakspere, had ascended the papal 
throne as Adrian the Fourth. During the long period 
of the Crusades, and the centuries when religious en- 
thusiasm still stirred mankind, English pilgrims passed 
as a rule through Italy on their way to Palestine. So 
long as scholastic theology and canon law were studied 
as much at Bologna as at Oxford, there was little for 
Englishmen to bring back with them. A new era 
dawned, however, when the wave of the Renaissance 



52 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

swept over one country while the other was still un- 
affected by it. 

The Church Councils, especially, brought the prel- 
ates of different nations, and their numerous retinues, 
in close contact with one another. Henry Chichely, 
Archbishop of Canterbury, after returning from that of 
Siena, gave valuable gifts to Oxford, and founded All 
Souls College. At the Council of Constance, where 
gleams of the new humanism for the first time crossed 
the Alps, Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, and 
an uncle of Henry the Fifth, met Poggio Bracciolini 
and invited him to England. 

During Poggio's residence there, from 1420 to 
1422^ while he himself accomplished little, the great 
Florentine scholar found in John Stafford, Archbishop 
of Canterbury, Nicholas Bildstone, the Archdeacon of 
Winchester, and especially Richard Pettworth, Beau- 
fort's secretary, men of considerable cultivation.^ Still 
another learned prelate of this early period was Thomas 
Arundel, also Archbishop of Canterbury, who corre- 
sponded with the scholarly chancellor of Florence, 
Coluccio de' Salutati. 

English learning, however, was to make its progress 
at Oxford and not in the ecclesiastical centres. Even 
such churchmen as Grey, Flemming and Gunthorpe 
were to assist by their gifts of books rather than their 
personal example. In developing the new learning, 
there was thus at the outset an essential difference be- 

iVide p. 180. 

2 Poggio, Episiolce^ II, 12, 18, 20, 22, 35; V, 22, etc. 



THE SCHOLAR 53 

tween the scholars and the dignitaries of the church. 
Both were university men, and the former were also 
for the most part in orders ; but their preferments as 
a rule were only minor ones. The work in which they 
achieved real success was in their teaching at Oxford ; 
while the assistance lent the cause by the great church- 
men came rather through protecting the interests of 
scholars, as well as in gifts and donations of manu- 
scripts. 

Many prelates, however, set a personal example of 
learning, among whom were Bishop Waynflete, and 
Peter Courtenay, the Bishop of Exeter, who had studied 
at Padua. Thomas Langton, too, the Bishop of Win- 
chester, had in his youth been in Italy, and was later 
sent by Richard the Third on an embassy to Rome. 
Returning to England, he founded a school for boys 
in his own house at Winchester, desiring perhaps to 
emulate Vittorino da Feltre. He showed further in- 
terest in the new learning by his connection with Ox- 
ford, and in sending Richard Pace to study in Italy. 
The many churchmen who displayed a similar in- 
terest, or were in some way connected with Italy, are 
far too numerous to mention here. A few examples 
only of the learned ecclesiastics — a type so prominent 
in the Renaissance — can be given. Of these William 
Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, was among the most 
prominent. After having been at Oxford, he visited 
Italy, where he perhaps developed his interest in letters. 
The examples of the great Italian cardinals may also 
have urged him to follow them in his patronage of 



54 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

learning. His wit, his genial temper and courtesy, 
no less than his own culture, made him the friend and 
protector of the scholars who were preaching the new 
learning in England. To Erasmus he was " my special 
Maecenas " : ^ Warham's kindness alone kept him from 
seeking the rich libraries and cultivated circles of Rome.^ 
A zeal for learning and the patronage of scholars be- 
came almost an affectation on the part of the higher 
clergy. Some like Pace and Tunstall had studied at 
Padua, while the former even published in Venice a 
portion of the works of Plutarch, which he dedicated 
to Cardinal Campeggio, who was also interested in the 
success of humanism at the court.^ Stephen Gardiner, 
too, the friend of Erasmus, and Richard Foxe, the 
founder of Corpus Christi, had both been on embassies 
to Rome. Edward Bonner was also eager to learn 
Italian. In all ranks of the church an interest in the 
new learning was shown, even by those who were to 
leave the Roman faith, but who in their zeal for letters 
continued former traditions. The great patrons of 
learning were most beneficial in establishing scholarly 
foundations. This was especially true of Cambridge, 
where the new learning came far later than at Oxford. 
During the entire fifteenth century the traces of Italian 
learning were barely noticeable there. A copy of 
Petrarch's poems had, it is true, found its way to the 
Hbrary of Peterhouse so early as 1426.* A few similar 
books were gradually acquired, and John Gunthorpe 

1 Epist., CXLIV. 3 /^^v., CCCCXXXVII. 

2 Ibid., CLXVIII. 4 Mullinger, I, 433. 



THE SCHOLAR 55 

left some of his manuscripts to Jesus College. Very 
few indications of the new learning can, however, be 
found, although an Italian named Caius Auberinus 
acted as Latin scribe toward the end of the century, 
and gave in addition occasional lectures on Terence.^ 

The impulse, when it came, was chiefly from Bishop 
Fisher, who, encouraged in his efforts by Lady Mar- 
garet, was determined to raise Cambridge to the level 
of her sister university. In 15 ii, he summoned 
Erasmus, who for a time gave unofficial instruction 
in Greek. The intellectual condition of things may 
be judged from his complaint that the masters at 
Cambridge were trying to bring back dialectics.^ 
He said himself he did his best to deliver the rising 
generation from ignorance, and to inspire them with 
a taste for better studies. Ten years later, how- 
ever, he was able to write differently, and declare that 
Cambridge could then compete with the chief univer- 
sities of the age. Bishop Fisher was largely instru- 
mental in bringing about this improvement ; not only 
did he assist in establishing St. John's College, but he 
founded lectureships as well in Greek and Hebrew. 
His generosity, moreover, enabled Richard Croke to 
go as the first professor of Greek to Cambridge, 
instead of to Oxford where his friendship with Linacre 
and More would naturally have led him. 

Similar foundations were also established at Oxford, 
the first by Richard Foxe, Bishop of Winchester, who 

1 Cooper, Athena;, I, 9. 

2 Cal. St. Pap., Henry VIII, I, No. 1404. 



56 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

endowed Corpus Christi in 15 16. This was a college 
founded in the interests of humanism, and attracted 
for that reason considerable attention ; for, up to that 
time, the new plant had been grafted on the old, 
usually without success. In the statutes of Corpus 
Christi, however, all former hindrances were swept 
aside. A public lecturer in Greek was to be among 
its principal officers, and Greeks and Italians were de- 
clared especially ehgible for the position. A complete 
humanistic education was required of its graduates ; 
for the long vacation, the works of Valla and Politian 
were especially recommended as subjects of study; 
candidates for scholarships, in addition to knowing the 
ancient writers thoroughly, must themselves be able to 
compose Latin verses, although in ordinary conversation 
within the college Greek was thought acceptable as a 
substitute for Latin. By such means as these it was 
intended that " all barbarism " should be suppressed.^ 
The torrent of opposition greeting P'oxe's daring 
innovations was ended by More's influence at the 
court, and Cardinal Wolsey's similar foundation of 
Christ Church, which he endowed from the revenues 
of the suppressed monasteries. Consent for this was 
obtained at Rome by Wolsey's agent, Ghinucci, who 
was also instructed to search for books, and order 
copies to be made of the Greek manuscripts in Italian 
libraries.^ Wolsey made a similar request of the 
Venetian envoy, Orio, requesting him, as a great favor, 

^ Maxwell-Lyte, p. 412. 
2 Creighton, p. 25, 



THE SCHOLAR $7 

to ask the signory for transcripts, for the college library, 
of the Greek manuscripts which had belonged to 
Cardinals Grimani and Bessarion.^ The college 
itself was filled with the spirit of the new learning ; 
the great writers of antiquity were to be expounded 
daily, and all conversation conducted in either Latin 
or Greek. The foundation of similar institutions thus 
marked the final overthrow of scholasticism by the 
new learning of the Renaissance. Its further develop- 
ment at both Oxford and Cambridge was to be more 
especially along purely English lines. 

In the early stages of the new learning the English 
scholar's dependence and example came almost entirely 
from Italy. Even much later, although great foreign 
scholars like Vives and Erasmus, both of whom aided 
so largely the growth of English learning, were not 
themselves Itahans, yet the one had studied long in 
Italy, while the other, before crossing the Alps, had 
sought instruction at Oxford from those who had 
themselves studied there. So far-reaching was the 
influence of Italy in the sixteenth century, that much 
which may seem French or Spanish at first glance was, 
in reality, Italian, but once removed. 

In Italy, therefore, English scholars had first been 
taught the new humanism, while Enghsh churchmen 
found there an example for their patronage of letters. 
It was the joint effort of both that brought about the 
Renaissance of learning in England, to which patron 
and scholar alike contributed. 

1 Cal. SL Pap., Ven., IH, 515. 



CHAPTER II 
THE COURTIER 



In the last quarter of the fifteenth century the 
nations of Western Europe began to pass through 
similar phases in their transition from the Middle Ages 
to the Renaissance. "The dominant poHtical feature of 
the age was the concentration of the supreme power 
of the state in the person of one sovereign prince. 
This had begun already in Italy, where petty despots 
gathered into their hands the power of the nobihty 
and burghers, whom they reconciled to the loss of 
political liberty by the attractions and splendor of their 
courts. Similarly, beyond the Alps the centralization 
of the sovereign power in the king brought with it, 
on the one hand, a diminution in the influence of the 
great nobles, while on the other, it fostered the growth 
of the court. Thus it came about that the poHtical 
characteristic of the age was likewise to mark its 
social development, and the descendants of feudal 
lords were gradually transformed into courtiers. 

Court life in the Renaissance assumed of a sudden 
far greater importance than ever before. More and 
more the activities of the nation centred around and 
emanated from it. While during the Middle Ages 

58 



THE COURTIER 59 

every castle was a miniature court, complete in itself, 
the life of the nation was now focussed, so to 
speak, around one sovereign, about whom there 
gathered the best in the land. The court became 
almost the only means of entering the service of the 
state, which at that time depended so largely on royal 
favor. It led as a stepping-stone to the great careers 
of arms, diplomacy and administrative employment. 
Whoever found favor in his prince's eyes might well 
hope to be intrusted with the command of an army, 
the charge of an embassy, or the government of a 
province. 

Toward the end of the fifteenth century, Italian 
influences began to appear at the English court. 
Through the scholars, the new humanism had spread 
from Oxford to this larger sphere, where it could more 
readily be felt ; a noticeable growth, moreover, had 
taken place in direct intercourse with Italy. The 
Dukes of Ferrara and Urbino were on the friendliest 
footing with Henry the Seventh,^ and he himself 
employed numerous Italians in his personal service : 
among others there may be mentioned Silvestro Gigli, 
his master of ceremonies, Polydore Vergil, his friend, 
historian and adviser, and his poet, Peter Carmeliano. 
In its hearty welcome to Italians, the EngHsh court in 
the sixteenth century was only following the example 
of France and Spain. Monarchs could, indeed, find 
their most servile adherents in these foreigners, who 

1 Cal. St. Pap. Veil., VI, Pt. Ill, 1603 et seq. Dennistoun, 

Memoirs of the D tikes of Urbino , II, 443 et seq. 



60 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

without ties binding them to their adopted land were 
courtiers and diplomats by nature. Another reason, 
moreover, added to their success. A new type of 
courtier had grown up in Italy. At the courts of 
Urbino, Mantua and Ferrara, a higher conception 
had been formed of what the companion of the prince 
ought to be ; his manners and accomplishments 
became an outward reflection of the new life of the 
Renaissance, infusing its spirit in the court. By de- 
grees these were formed into a system ready to be 
taught as a part of the courtier's education. A definite 
and distinct type having thus gradually been created in 
Italy, the courtier who had received this training be- 
came superior to any other. During the sixteenth cen- 
tury, England in common with the other nations of 
Western Europe acquired considerable familiarity with 
this new type, through the observation of Italians at 
home and abroad, and partly, too, through the trans- 
lation of Italian books, especially of such as related to 
manners ; from these could be obtained the new theory 
of the courtier as it presented itself to the Italians of 
the Renaissance. 

It was especially in Italy that the inquiring spirit 
of the race endeavored to analyze the principles 
of conduct determining all matters of social inter- 
course ; hence great numbers of manuals of cour- 
tesy, and guides to conversation, were written there. 
Conversation and courtesy were then treated almost 
as fine arts, which could both be taught and prac- 
tised. Books professing to give such instruction 



THE COURTIER 6 1 

endeavored to direct the entire social existence of man, 
advising him even in regard to the most intimate de- 
tails of life. Two kinds of such courtesy books can 
be distinguished in the literature of the age : the one 
intended for men in general, gave sound advice in the 
direction of refinement of manners ; the other, on the 
contrary, confined its attention to the courtier class, 
quite unconcerned with the ordinary individual. Delia 
Casa's Galateo and Castiglione's Cortegiano severally 
were the representatives of each type. Although writ- 
ten in Italian their influence was in fact European, and 
they were well known in translations throughout West- 
ern Europe. Any account of court life in England in 
the sixteenth century, would, indeed, be incomplete 
without attention to such books, which both gave a 
definite expression to the underlying principles of the 
courtier's art, and advocated likewise a new ideal 
of social conduct. Scores of allusions can be found 
to these books in the English literature of the age, 
and especially to the Cortegiano, which in itself 
may almost be said to have given voice to the un- 
defined mass of Italian influences at the Tudor court, 
and assisted in forming in England the new type of 
courtier. 

II >^)^ 

In the sixteenth century, even more than now, the v^"'^'^ 
question as to what constituted a gentleman was dis- 
cussed among the living problems of the age. This 
great subject centred around the respective merits of 



62 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

nobility by birth and nobility by virtue.-^ Different, 
often contrary, views were expressed on the subject, 
but opinions tended to group themselves in two separate 
camps. On the one side was the so-called popular idea 
which considered nobihty to be by birth alone, and 
seemed to think it showed itself in a tone of luxury and 
sport, an overbearing manner and a quick temper.^ 
On the other was the opinion of alleged " philosophers," 
who maintained that since all men owed equally their 
origin to God, in whom the highest nobility found its 
centre, every one, irrespective of birth, was noble so 
long as he lived a virtuous life ; if, however, he inclined 
toward vice, he was base, no matter from whom he 
traced his descent.^ Between these two extremes 
most opinions varied. Especially debatable were the 
quahfications necessary to the eligibility of the courtier 
— a question of the greatest importance, since gentle- 
men then found an active career open at court. It was 
thought by some that the courtier should be a gentle- 
man born and of good family ; his nobility, however, 
was not to excuse in him any lack of virtue, since such 
deficiency would be far less reprehensible in one of 
low birth than in a gentleman. Others argued in favor 
of wit and beauty taking the place of noble descent. 
Still a third eminently practical view was held by some. 
Although high virtues, it was acknowledged, were 
often present in one of base extraction, yet the courtier 

1 Vide Nennio, or a Treatise of Nobility. 

2 Humphrey, The Nobles or of Nobility. 

* Romei, Courtier'' s Academy, p. 187 et seq. 



THE COURTIER 63 

should be of noble birth, since prejudice played so 
large a role in all human affairs, and people respected 
noblemen fiir more, although their qualities were no 
greater.^ The first view prevailed for the most part, 
especially in the first half of the sixteenth century. 
Liberal opinion complained bitterly that " the world 
commonly reputeth gentry by birth as legitimate, and 
gentry by virtue as bastardly and far inferior to the 
other . . . [Men had] rather be born gentlemen 
and have nothing in the world but their rapier and 
cloak, than to be descended of base parentage and to 
be senators or presidents." ^ Virtue, however, was 
thought by all to be the first cause of nobility, and its 
truest expression was said to consist in its union with 
famous ancestry.^ He who was noble without vir- 
tue, or virtuous without nobility, could never prop- 
erly be termed a gentleman."* Even such of the later 
writers as were imbued with a more democratic spirit 
recognized the advantages of noble descent. A senti- 
ment frequently expressed was that one ought not to 
boast of ancient hneage but prove one's self worthy of 
it. It was said that the great advantage of noble 
blood was in making men ashamed to degenerate 
from the virtue and valor of their ancestors.^ Lau- 
rence Humphrey only echoed Castighone in his say- 
ing that faults were far more excusable in one of base 

^ Castiglione, T/ie Courtier, p. 44 et seq, 

2 Guazzo, Civil Conversations, f. 83 et seq. 

8 Humphrey, op. cit. * Romei, p. 225 et seq. 

^ Guazzo, f. 86. 



64 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

extraction than in a nobleman of famous lineage. 
Italian views on this and kindred subjects were fre- 
quently repeated in England, with a certain moral 
element usually added to them. English writers on 
this topic, from Sir Thomas Elyot, Humphrey, the 
anonymous author of The Institution of a Ge?itle?nan 
and still later, William Segar, were all familiar with the 
works of Italians, from whom they frequently quoted, 
often without acknowledging their indebtedness. The 
theory of the gentleman was, however, a far more 
popular subject of discussion in Italy than in England, 
where its echoes were mostly of Italian origin, and 
but few original views were set forth. 

A question often discussed was the compatibility of 
commerce with nobility. It was urged by some that the 
Venetians and Genoese, who thought themselves the 
first gentlemen, in the world, considered it no disgrace 
to be merchants as well.^ The great argument ad- 
vanced in favor of trade was the practical one that 
nobility could neither be brought to perfection with- 
out wealth nor be preserved without money. Even in 
the sixteenth century, riches played a far greater part in 
the consideration of the gentleman than is commonly 
supposed. Money, however, of itself was not sufficient 
to ennoble a man, although three generations of wealth 
might suffice to do so.^ On the other hand, poverty 
would often force a man to marry a woman of low 
birth, and thus debase his blood. ^ If any conclusion 

1 Segar, Honor, Military and Civil, ch. i8. 

2 Romei, p. 187. s Guazzo, f. 89. 



THE COURTIER 65 

was reached at all in regard to the part played by 
riches, it was, perhaps, that though they could add in 
no degree to gentry, yet they permitted certain virtues 
pertaining to it to be practised, which poverty did not 
allow. A mere vulgar exhibition of wealth was, how- 
ever, frowned on severely, while those who called them- 
selves gentlemen, simply because they could afford to 
live idly, were sharply censured.^ 

Underneath the surface, especially during the latter J^Ab^ 
half of the sixteenth century, a strong democratic ten- I ^ 
dency can be observed, which revealed itself chiefly in 
the growing importance assigned to such qualities in 
the individual as were independent of birth. Humble 
parentage had never been a bar to success in England 
where real ability forced its way to the front at all times, 
and especially in the sixteenth century, when many 
commoners were ennobled. It was usually accepted 
that children of men of distinction were gentlemen, 
regardless of their parents' birth.^ The new Italian 
idea of gentlemanliness, which was penetrating Eng- 
land, was to include, moreover, such men as had for- 
merly been debarred in theory. Whoever had studied 
the laws of the realm, had been at the university, or 
professed the liberal sciences, whoever could live 
without manual labor, and bear the port, charge, and 
countenance of a gentleman should be taken for one.^ 
A reaction naturally followed ; men complained that 
the old ideal of gentlemanliness had been suffered 

1 Romei, p. 226 ei set/. - Institution of a Gentleman. 

2 Sir Thomas Smith, Commonwealth of England, p. 37. 

F 



66 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

to decay, that many who were no better than handi- 
craftsmen had assumed the title and bore the arms 
which rightly belonged to the old gentry. " As for 
gentlemen, they be made good cheap in England," 
wrote Sir Thomas Smith,^ with ill- concealed dislike 
for this new democratic movement. 

More and more, however, new tests of learning, 
civihty and virtue were applied to the judgment of 
the gentleman. It was even maintained that only 
such as excelled in an art or science acquired thereby 
a true nobility, far superior to one of birth or descent.^ 
This nobility should spring from inward virtue, and not 
consist merely of outward form.^ Men were to be 
respected not by reason of their ancestors, but for 
such virtues as were within them. The self-made 
gentleman possessed a twofold advantage over the 
gentleman only by birth : the first was virtue, the other 
courtesy, " the right ornament of a gentleman ; for of 
courtesy and gentleness, he is termed a gentleman." ^ 
Some even argued that it was an impossibility for men 
to be gentlemen who had no other qualification than 
their birth. " If they be uncivil how are they gentle- 
men? and if they be gentlemen how are they un- 
civil? . . . Gentry and renown is not got by our 
birth but by our hfe, yea, and sometimes by our 
death." ^ 

^ Cojnmonwealth of England, p. 37. 

2 V. Saviolo, his Practise, Preface. 

^ Humphrey, op. cit. 

* Guazzo, ff. 85 b, 2>2>, 5 Ibid., ff. 85 b, 92. 



THE COURTIER 6/ 

A loftier and more democratic ideal of what the 
perfect gentleman ought to be had arisen in Italy, and 
found its way to England. It was no longer sufficient 
to follow in the footsteps of worthy predecessors : 
" Whoso vaunteth of his ancestors seemeth without 
any good thing of his own." ^ The new conception of 
gentlemanliness by personal effort, which sprang up, 
looked rather to individual virtu than to outward 
factors. This feeling was well expressed by a con- 
temporary writer : " If it be a great delight for a 
man to know that from time to time out of his house 
(as out of the Trojan horse) there have issued captains, 
colonels, and knights, . . . how much more shall it 
be to him, who may say that he hath, according to 
the proverb, wings broader than the nest, and by the 
excellence of his deeds, and sufficiency in learning and 
feats of arms, hath surpassed the deserts, dignities, and 
degrees of his predecessors, and alone, as it were, car- 
ried away the prize. " ^ 

The influence of this new democratic doctrine of 
the Renaissance extended beyond the Alps. Even 
though in practice it was not to be realized till cen- 
turies later, it yet found frequent expression in Htera- 
ture and life. At the very court of Elizabeth it was 
echoed by William Segar, almost as a promise of the 
future liberty and freedom of the individual to rise 
by his own merits. The doctrine upheld by the Italians 
of the Renaissance was later to be reahzed among 
EngHsh-speaking people. " I say that the true no- 

1 Segar, Book of Honor, p. 34. 2 Guazzo, f. 87. 



68 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

bility of man is virtue, and that he is truly noble that 
is virtuous, be he born of high or low parents ; and 
the more highly he be born, the worse reputation 
he meriteth, if he cannot continue the honor left him 
by his ancestors." ^ 

III 

The Renaissance, more than any period in the 
modern world, endeavored to develop, as far as pos- 
sible, the different faculties of man. The ideal of 
universality, once aimed at, was consciously pursued 
and attained by the best spirits of the age. This was 
especially true in Italy, where the perfect man of 
the Renaissance strove for excellence in every branch 
of human activity, both intellectual and physical, try- 
ing at the same time to be statesman and athlete, poet 
and scientist, philosopher and courtier. The excel- 
lence of the courtier, however, was by no means 
limited to the qualities of his mind. He was to 
I possess every grace and accomplishment, but never 
to push into undue prominence what he did well ; 
nor even appear to have given much time or study to 
it, since that would have spoiled the artistic effect pro- 
duced on the spectator.^ Everything was therefore to 
be done with grace, as though presenting no difficulty. 
He was to be nimble, quick and light, continually 
showing pluck and spirit ; good at all games and excel- 
ling at the tourney, in hunting, swimming, leaping, run- 
ning and casting the stone ; even tennis and vaulting 

1 Segar, p. 34. 2 Castiglione, p. 115. 



THE COURTIER 69 

were recommended. On the other hand, tumbhng, 
dimbing a rope and jugglers' tricks should never be -- 
practised by the courtier, who ought to preserve his 
dignity in all his actions. Above everything else, the 
superiority of his station in life was to be real, not 
merely a matter of convention ; thus, if he wrestled or 
ran with countrymen, he should appear to do so for 
courtesy only, and not to win ; but first he must be 
sure of himself; ^' for it is too ill a sight ... to see 
a gentleman overcome by a carter, and especially in 
wrestling." ^ This scorn of social inferiority, it may 
be remarked, was by no means universal. In later 
years, especially, a kindlier and more democratic view 
was often taken of the relations which ought to exist 
between the different classes. Gentlemen were urged 
not to despise the society of their social inferiors, who 
would love and honor them in consequence. " There 
is no more difference between the gentleman and the 
yeoman than there is between two bricks made of 
selfsame earth, whereof the one is set in the top of 
a tower, the other in the bottom of a well." ^ 

It is curious to think that England, which to-day 
claims superiority in sport, should have submitted in 
the sixteenth century to ItaHan methods and instruc- 
tion. The accomplishments and pleasures of the courtly 
life had, however, first been systematized in Italy, and 
in sport, as well, its guidance was supreme. Even in 
horsemanship, Edward the Sixth had his Italian riding- 
master at the court ; another Italian, known as Alex- 

^ Casliglione, p. 115. 2 Guazzo, f. 90 b. 



70 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

ander, who had studied under the celebrated Gri- 
sone, also taught in England, and to him was ascribed, 
in part, the improvement in English teachers of riding. 
Elsewhere it was the same ; Sidney spoke of Pietro 
Pugliano at the Emperor's court instructing his pupils 
both in the practice and theory of horsemanship, and 
even later Robert Dallington advised his traveller to 
learn riding under // Signor Rustico at Florence.^ The 
first English book on horsemanship was Blundevile's 
translation of Grisone, which appeared about 1560. 
What Alexander had failed to accomplish was left for 
this book to effect ; after its publication, says Beding- 
field, riding-masters who before " were not of much 
knowledge " improved considerably. The popularity 
of similar books was very great. Bedingfield was only 
one among their numerous translators.^ Even Florio 
gave as a reason for his Italian dictionary, that with- 
out it English gentlemen would be unable to under- 
stand Grifonio's work on riding. 

In falconry, and hunting as well, George Turbervile, 
in one of the most elaborately prepared books of the 
age, openly acknowledged his debt to the many Italian 
writers on the subject.^ It was in fencing, however, 
then so essential a part of the gentleman's education, 
that the skill of the Italian showed itself to the greatest 
advantage. Even the Italian terms of the art were 
employed in England. English travellers were advised 

1 Method for Travel. 

2 Art of Riding, translated by Thomas Bedingfield. 
^ The Book of Falconry or Hawking, 



THE COURTIER 7 1 

when abroad, to study fencing either at Padua under 
// Sordo or else at Rome.^ This was scarcely neces- 
sary, however, since numerous Italian masters of the art 
gave instruction in England. George Silver mentioned 
three such schools in London.^ A Signor Rocco had one 
in Warwick Lane, which he called a college, where " he 
taught none commonly under twenty, forty, fifty or an 
hundred pounds." On the walls of his school, according 
to Silver's contemporary description, hung the coats- 
of-arms of the noblemen and gentlemen who were his 
pupils, and beneath these were their rapiers, daggers 
and gauntlets. He even had a room he called " his 
privy school, with many weapons therein, where he 
did teach his scholars his secret fight, after he had 
perfectly taught them their rules." ^ In addition to 
its ordinary use, the school was also a sort of club for 
the young gallants of the court who found there " ink, 
pin-dust and sealing wax, and quires of very excellent 
fine paper gilded, ready for the noblemen and gentle- 
men upon occasion to write their letters." * 

The most celebrated, however, of the Italian fencing- 
masters in England was Vincenzo Saviolo, who had as 
patron the Earl of Essex. Saviolo has been described 
as the perfect fencer by Florio, in words which Shake- 
speare almost certainly knew — " He will hit any man, 
be it with a thrust or stoccata, with an imbroccada or 
a charging blow, with a right or reverse blow, be it 

1 Dallington, MetJiod for Travel. 

2 Paradoxes of Defence. 

8 Ibid., p. 65. * Ibid., p. 64. 



72 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

with the edge, with the back, or with the flat, even as 
it Hketh him," ^ 

The Itahan schools of fencing enjoyed a great success 
in London. Their methods of instruction, hke their 
weapons, were both new to Enghshmen, but proved 
none the less popular in an age when novelty was 
appreciated for its own sake. Their pupils were 
even taught to wear leaden soles in their shoes, to 
be the more nimble-footed in a fight. An Eng- 
lish fencing-master of the time complained bitterly 
that his art, Hke fashions of dress, changed every 
day ; that Enghshmen had forsaken their fathers' vir- 
tues with their weapons, and lusted after the strange 
devices of Italian fencers and their imitators : " O you 
Italian teachers of defence, where are your stoccatas, 
imbroccatas, mandritas , puntas, and punta reversas, 
stramisons , passatas, ca^-ricadas, amazzas, and incarta- 
tas. . . . apish devices with all the rest of your squint- 
eyed tricks." ^ 

The influence of this new Itahan school made itself 
felt, however, in different ways. Among its other 
eifects was the improvement of manners. Even George 
vSilver, who hated the Italians as dangerous rivals, felt 
obliged to concede this : " It hath been commonly 
held that since the ItaHans have taught the rapier 
fight, by reason of the dangerous use thereof, it hath 
bred great civility amongst our English nation, they 
win not give the He, nor with such foul speeches abuse 

^ Second Fruites, p. 119. 

^ Silver, p. 55. Vide Marston, Works, III, 373. 



THE COURTIER 73 

themselves ; therefore there are fewer frays in these 
times than were wont to be. It cannot be denied that 
this is so, that we are more circumspect in our words 
than heretofore we have been." ^ 

Itahan treatises on fencing also enjoyed great popu- 
larity in England ; Giacomo de Grassi's True Art of 
Defence treated in detail the theory of the art, with 
illustrations and diagrams describing the various kinds 
of weapons used, rapier and halberd, partesan and 
javelin, and also of the falsing of blows and thrusts. 
Saviolo's Practise, dedicated to " the English Achilles," 
Robert, Earl of Essex, obtained, however, a far greater 
celebrity, and still remains of interest as the great source 
from which the Elizabethan dramatists acquired their 
knowledge of duelling. 

Saviolo's work in combining practice with theory 
illustrated one of the causes of Italian success in 
such matters. Not only was the practical side of 
his art treated at length, but selections from well- 
known historians were also given. A large part of 
the book was further taken up by discussion ; thus, 
the point of honor, and the relations to be observed 
between men under strained circumstances, were 
treated. From his warnings, some idea can be had of 
the frequency of treachery in such matters ; for in- 
stance, it was thought unwise to ask to see another 
man's rapier, since it gave an opportunity to kill an 
unsuspecting enemy. He alluded also to the cow- 
ardly practice of hiring bravos to aid in murdering an 

1 Op. cit,, p. 56. 



74 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

adversary, by no means an uncommon thing at that 
time. Even the Earl of Oxford, returning from his 
travels abroad, had with great difficulty been dissuaded 
from employing this Italian custom to revenge himself 
on Sidney. Other dangers were to be guarded against 
as well; thus, friends coming up suddenly in the 
midst of an encounter, as though to separate the com- 
batants, might treacherously slay their favorite's oppo- 
nent. He spoke also of quarrels, beginning between 
two or three men, and then spreading until whole fami- 
lies were engaged in them, and often not ending with- 
out great bloodshed.^ Saviolo, like Castiglione, advised 
gentlemen to keep close guard over their tongues, 
neither to bear slander nor tell tales, and always to 
behave rightly to men of inferior station. To illustrate 
his point, he related the story of a wrestling match, 
which later Shakespeare made use of in As Yoti Like 
It. Saviolo's tale was of an overbearing Moor van- 
quished by Rodomont, the Duke of Mantua's brother, 
who though himself a wild sort of fellow, would yet 
not " suffer so beastly a creature to stain the honor of 
Italian gentlemen." Touchstone's description of the 
different kinds of lies ^ was likewise taken almost cer- 
tainly from Saviolo, who discussed conditional and 
foolish lies, lies in particular and lies in general.^ 

1 It was perhaps some similar sentence which first suggested 
the dramatic possibilities of Romeo and Juliet, and gave Eliza- 
bethan playwrights an insight into the feuds of Italian cities. 

2 As Yott Like It, V, iv, 70 et seq. 

^ A similar account may be found in Segar's Book of Honor 
and Arms ^ I590« 



THE COURTIER 75 

According to Saviolo, giving the lie was at the bottom 
of most duels, and he therefore cited the Italian code 
of dueUing to be used on such occasions. 

Even in that age the ethics of the duel were in de- 
bate. Men argued on the wickedness of private com- 
bat/ and Bryskett in his rendering of Giraldi Cinthio, 
condemned duels as " contrary to all virtue, odious to 
all laws, to all good magistrates, and to God himself,- " 
saying that the way to shake off an injury was to 
despise it.^ Saviolo, without discussing the moral 
side of the duel, described the proper etiquette to be 
observed, the forms of cartels and letters of defiance, 
and the manner in which they were to be sent; he 
entered also into conduct on the duelling ground, 
the treatment of the vanquished and the inequality of 
adversaries ; his advice was, that excommunicated 
persons, usurers, and all who did not live as gentlemen 
or soldiers, should be refused satisfaction in honorable 
combat. 

Saviolo's book was probably the first in the Eng- 
lish language ever written by an Italian. It stated 
openly the Italian ideal of arms and letters, weapons 
and books, as the two sources of greatness. By the 
one, the small man could overcome the larger, the weak 
the stronger ; by the other, man could raise himself to 
any height by his own unaided merits. The entire 
Renaissance conception of the dignity of the individual 
lay in these words, the spirit of which gave conscious 

1 Romei, p. 129. 

2 Discourse of Civil Life, p. 70. ^ Ibid.y p. 77. 



j6 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

assurance to the Italians in their careers beyond the 
Alps, making a Rizzio prime minister of Scotland, and 
the descendants of Florentine bankers queens of 
France. 

The revival of the tourney was still another courtly 
practice which England copied largely from Italy. 
Jousting as a court amusement became fashionable 
once more in Elizabeth's time. Sir Christopher Hat- 
ton, well known as a patron of letters, and himself a 
student of ItaUan, was especially prominent among 
those who revived it. Wilham Segar, garter king-at- 
arms, in his Honor, Militafj and Civil, alluded fre- 
quently to Italian practices, describing their method of 
conducting tournaments.^ At Urbino and Ferrara, 
jousting had long been regarded as an amusement of 
the court; even Castiglione had advised his courtier 
how to conduct himself at the tourney; never, for 
instance, to be last in the lists, since women, especially, 
paid far greater attention to the first than to the last.^ 

In many other courtly practices, as well, the influ- 
ence of Italy was felt. Hall, in his Chronicle, described 
the first mask held at court in 1512-13, as being in the 
Italian fashion. " On the Day of Epiphany, at night, 
the King with eleven others were disguised after the 
manner of Italy, called a Mask, a thing not seen before 
in England." The very names of Maskelyn and Mas- 
culers, occurring in the Records of the Revels, point to 
the Italian equivalents of Maschera and Mascherati? 

1 Ch. 50. 2 Castiglione, p. 1 14. 

^ Symonds, Shakespeare's Predecessors^ p. 320. 



THE COURTIER 77 

The best artists of the period lent their assistance to 
contribute to the success of these masks ; the records 
still exist of two Italians, Vincent Vulpe and Ellis 
Carmyan, who had been engaged in their decoration 
in the reign of Henry the Eighth.^ Even Holbein 
was similarly employed, while considerably later Inigo 
Jones did not consider it beneath his dignity to devise 
and introduce new stage mechanisms which he had 
learned in Italy. 

The Venetian SpinelU left an account of one of the 
earlier masks, which was presented at court in 1527, 
and may be given as an example of the early scenic 
development of similar spectacles in England. To de- 
scribe it very briefly : admission to the hall in which it 
took place was through a lofty triumphal arch, fashioned 
after the antique, with vaulted entrances beneath, and 
Greek words written over the archway. The Renais- 
sance spirit in which it was conceived showed itself 
even in the neo-classicism of the decorations, reminis- 
cent of Mantegna's allegories or the paintings of the 
Ferrarese school. The actors of the mask first ap- 
peared on the scene and then withdrew, leaving behind 
a youth in the guise of Mercury, who, pretending to be 
Jupiter's envoy to the king, delivered a learned Latin 
oration in praise of his Majesty. When he had de- 
parted, eight boys led by Cupid and Plutus entered, 
clad in cloth of gold. Afterwards a like number of 
maidens appeared, supposed to be goddesses, also 
draped in gold cloth, and with richly jewelled garlands 

1 Brewer, Henry VIII, II, 150. 



yS ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

in their hair. First they danced, and then came the 
turn of the young men, each of whom took one of the 
nymphs by the hand.^ 

The popularity of these spectacles was very great, 
and they continued for long to be the favorite amuse- 
ment of the court; Marlowe, for instance, made 
Gaveston, the royal favorite, say : — 

I'll have Italian masques by night, 
Sweet speeches, comedies, and pleasing shows. 

Italian players, both men and women, later came 
over to England to play in masks, performing both 
at Windsor and Reading in 1574. At court, more- 
over, the masks were usually presented by Italians, 
often aided by Enghsh players. In the one presented 
before the queen and the French ambassador, the 
Lord Chamberlain gave instructions for the speeches 
written in English to be translated into Italian.^ 

The later development of masks under Jonson, Cam- 
pion and Hey wood, belongs to the history of Enghsh 
poetry. The musicians, however, were chiefly Italians, 
and Alfonso Ferrabosco composed much of the music . 
for the later court masks. Inigo Jones, moreover, who 
designed the mechanism and stage scenery, brought 
back the new mechanical devices from Italy, where 
he learned his art. Among the articles most in use for 
spectacles and state occasions, was the cloth of gold, 
which was imported largely from Italy. King Henry 
the Seventh sent at various times to Florence to pur- 

1 Brewer, II, 152 et seq. 

2 F. G. Fleay, History of the Stage, pp. 22, 26. 



THE COURTIER 79 

chase gold cloth, as well as silks.^ Many other Italian 
articles were also in great demand in England, for 
the Renaissance brought with it a perfect passion for 
novelty, which welcomed the introduction of foreign 
fashions. This was especially true of the luxuries Italy 
had to offer. Its embroidered gloves, sweet bags, per- 
fumed leather jerkins, and costly washes, were all said 
to have been introduced into England by the Earl of 
Oxford, returning home from his travels. Even ear- 
Her, in 1559, already a parhamentary consideration 
alluded to the perfumed gloves of the Italians with 
which they endeavored to curry favor,^ while Stowe 
mentioned the fact that women's masks, busks, muffs, 
fans, periwigs and bodkins, first used by courtesans in 
Italy, were all imported into England.^ 

In the matter of costume, especially, the influence 
of foreign fashions was felt. Italian, French, and 
Spanish articles of dress became fashionable at differ- 
ent times. The poor Englishman, bewildered, knew 
no longer which way to turn. Andrew Borde, a con- 
temporary physician, drew his likeness standing naked, 
unable to decide what to put on : — 

I am an Englishman and naked I stand here, 
Musing in my mind what raiment I shall wear ; 

For now I will wear this, and now I will wear that ; 
Now I will wear I cannot tell what.* 

1 Archives, Florence, Atti Puhlici, 1502, July 6. 

2 Historical Manuscript Commission, Hatfield House, I, 163. 
^ Harrison's Ejiglaitd, H, 34. 

* Early English Text Society, Extra Ser., 1 870, 



80 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

Among the foreign fashions introduced, the Italian 
long dominated. At the " Field of the Cloth of Gold " 
the Mantuan ambassador spoke of King Henry and 
his courtiers " dressed in long gowns in the Milanese 
fashion, checkered with hoods of gold tissue and gold 
brocade." ^ Later, the Venetian ambassador, Jacopo 
Soranzo, mentioned the fact that the costume of 
Englishmen was largely copied from the ItaHan. The 
long-breasted doublets and the so-called Venetian 
breeches were popular at one time.^ Italian terms 
of dress, bragetto and capucciof were then in ordinary 
EngHsh use. The dandyism of the EHzabethan courtiers 
was sharply commented on and satirized by many 
writers of that age.* It was even said that men 
changed daily the fashions of their clothes, no longer 
thinking a hundred pounds a great sum to spend on 
the wearing apparel of a gentleman. How different 
from the old days, when an English squire wore , the 
same dress for " twenty years " ; the days when there 
was simplicity in the land, and Englishmen were con- 
querors, and not " scholars " trying to imitate every 
new trifle in costume ! ^ 

1 Cal. St. Pap., Ven., Ill, 72. 

2 Fairholt, Costume in England, I, 213, 252. 
^ Faerie Queene, Bk. Ill, Canto XII, 10. 

* G. Harvey, Letter-Book, p, 97 et seq. ; G. Puttenham, Art 
of English Poesie, p. 305 ; R. Greene, Quips for an Upstart 
Cotcrtier, etc. 

^ Jnstittition of a Gentleman. 



THE COURTIER 8 1 



IV 



If a single book were to be chosen, typical of the 
Italian influence in the Renaissance in refining Euro- 
pean manners, it would in all likelihood be Delia Casa's 
Galateo. Castiglione's great work, though admirable 
in so many ways, yet narrowed its scope by appealing 
to only a limited court circle. The Galaieo was in- 
tended, however, for more general use. Like the 
Courtier it had also been translated into French and 
Spanish, before appearing in England in 1596. In /'^ 
this form it was to make its appeal to the Enghsh 
people at large, to such as were entirely ignorant 
of Italian and had never been abroad. The effect of 
the book was to assist in spreading the new reform 
of manners first brought about in Italy. This task 
was a far more necessary one than may seem at 
first glance. Social intercourse had been rough and 
uncouth in Europe in the Middle Ages. Nowhere- 
better than in the Galateo can this be appreciated 
after noticing the things condemned by writers on man- 
ners, like Delia Casa. Much of his advice may appear 
ludicrous at the present day : he bade the reader 
neither yawn in company, nor grind his teeth, nor 
sneeze too loud ; not to eat like a glutton, nor wipe 
his brow with his napkin. In like manner, the ordi- 
nary relations of life and rules of social conduct were 
prescribed at great length. But in addition to what 
to-day seem platitudes, much sound and good advice 
was given : anything unpleasant to the imagination 



82 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

ought to be avoided, " for we must not only refrain 
from such things as be foul, filthy, loathsome, and 
nasty, but we must not so much as name them ; and 
it is not only a fault to do such things, but against 
good manner by any act or sign to put a man in mind 
of them." Similarly, one ought not to " wash in the 
presence of others, since that suggests filthy matter." 
Many more personal details of this nature were men- 
tioned, not necessary to dwell on here. It was from 
Italy that there came the first protest against the un- 
couthness which had been handed down almost as a 
tradition of social life from the Dark Ages, not only in 
England but in France, where later the Florentine 
Marquise de Rambouillet was to set a personal exam- 
ple of Italian refinement. This new Italian influence 
in matters of social intercourse can perhaps best be 
appreciated by examining contemporary books on con- 
versation and letter- writing. In both, ItaHan models 
and examples were frequently employed. Robert 
Hitchcock's Quhifessence of Wit was indeed little else 
than a collection of maxims and aphorisms, collected 
for English readers from Itahan writers ; while Ful- 
wood's well-known Ene7ny of Idleness gave as illustra- 
tions the letters of ItaHan humanists. Politian, Ficino, 
Lorenzo de' Medici, and Pico della Mirandola were 
alike quoted for the benefit of such Englishmen as 
were anxious to acquire the art of letter-writing. Even 
the lover, languishing for his mistress, could find in 
this book the proper Petrarchan type of love-letter for 
him to send. 



THE COURTIER 83 

The Italian influence in conversation was largely 
felt in Platonism, for the Platonic ideas of the Renais- 
sance came from Italy to England, not only through 
Petrarch's poetry but by a hundred different ways 
of which but little was from Plato himself. Those 
unable to read Italian could find it expressed 
in Castiglione's Courtier, and Romei's Courtier^s 
Academy. Lodowick Bryskett, the friend of Sidney 
and Spenser, in his Discourse of Civil Life was 
translating Giraldi Cinthio's Platonic doctrines. In 
this literary expression of Platonism, so common 
during the Renaissance, the dialogue form was espe- 
cially employed. In Italy, Bembo's Asolani had given 
it a stamp which impressed itself on the culture of the 
age, even more perhaps than the influence of the 
original example. Following Bembo, the other writers 
likewise selected for their scene a garden, or some 
other suitable place, for the knights and ladies of the 
court to meet. Castiglione wrote of Urbino, Romei 
of Ferrara. The usual proceeding was for a queen to 
be elected from among the ladies present. She then 
assigned to the different members of the company a 
topic of discussion. In this manner the important 
subjects of conversation were treated in turn, and the 
ideas and opinions of the age, on love and honor, 
beauty and riches, and so forth, were all expressed. 
Love especially was always a favorite subject, and 
innumerable treatises were written about it, many of 
which were familiar to English readers. Thus Leon 
Battista Alberti's Art of Love was translated into Eng- 



84 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

lish. Castiglione also had much to say on the subject. 
He treated his courtier as a lover and gave him prac- 
tical advice as such. In his great discourse on love, 
placed in Bembo's mouth, he expounded the noblest 
ideas of Renaissance Platonism, and regarded love, 
freed from all ideas of sensuaHty, as the desire to 
enjoy beauty, which was most perfect when severed 
from every earthly tie.^ Similar elevated discourses 
were held in the less well-known Courtier's Acadeitiy, 
translated into English by John Kepers. In this the 
Countess of Scandiano, chosen by lot to be the leader, 
had been crowned with a garland of laurels. She com- 
manded " Signor Francesco Patritio," who was " very 
learned, but especially in Platonical philosophy," to 
discuss the subject of beauty, inquiring into its true 
nature, whether it had actual existence or was merely 
a creation of the imagination. His discourse is typical 
of others on the same subject. Heaven only, he de- 
clared, could be termed really beautiful ; the beauty of 
the human body came from contemplating that divine 
light which was reflected in the soul's beauty ; ^ it was 
virtue which made the soul approach this divine beauty ; 
next in order came the beauty of the world-soul known 
as nature. Colors were but divine ideas infused into this 
soul ; the pattern of form imprinted on it by the seal 
of divinity, giving beauty to the deformed, was propor- 
tion. The soul shone in contemplating the divine ; 
its beauty was only obscured when debased by sensual 

1 Castiglione, p. 342 et seq. 

2 Romei, p. 11 et seq. 



THE COURTIER 85 

delights. God, he went on to say, was the " creator 
and giver of all beauty because He alone was absolute 
perfection, perfect wisdom and incomprehensible 
beauty." Angelic understandings could contemplate 
His beauty face to face ; the human intellect, however, 
so far as it formed part of the material body, was 
blind to it. Beauty proceeded from form, deformity 
from matter, since matter resisted ideal reason. To 
sum up his ideas in a sentence, " The beauty of this 
worldly frame, and all the parts thereof, dependeth on 
ideal form in mind divine comprehended." 

Just as human beauty was the image of divinity, 
so beauty was also the mother of love. Love had 
been defined in various ways. Thus, Plato had called 
it, in the Phadriis, a desire to unite with the beautiful ; 
in the Banquet, to bring forth what was beautiful. The 
first definition, although true, seemed too restrained ; 
the second was only suitable to one kind of human 
affection and was by no means a general definition. To 
the Italian Platonist, love was rather a violent commo- 
tion of soul and mind stirred by some known beauty. 
It was of several kinds ; one was divine love, defined 
by Plato as a kind of sacred fury; another consisted 
in discoursing and conversing with the beloved. " Kiss- 
ing unto this love is permitted for a reward, in that a 
kiss is rather a conjunction of soul than body." ^ Divine 
love, however, was said to be a union with the beautiful 
which was the true image of divinity, raising the mind 
toward beauty and inflaming it with love for the creator. 

^ Romei, p. 40. 



S6 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

In all matters of human affection Petrarch was re- 
garded as " the Grand Master m love." ^ The numer- 
ous questions arising from his writings, the use of the 
eyes in love, the conduct of the lover and the lady, 
the great problem of whether man's love for woman 
or woman's for man was the greater, were all discussed ; 
but the authority of Petrarch was regarded as final 
by most writers. 

These manuals of polite conversation presented to 
an EngHsh public the Italian Neo-Platonism of the 
Renaissance. They possessed, in addition, other ele- 
ments of interest. "Conversation," it was said, "is the 
beginning and end of all knowledge."^ It should be 
treated as a fine art, worthy to be practised for its own 
sake ; George Whetstone for this reason in the Jlep- 
tameron of Civil Discourses repeated some of the 
" conversational entertainments " he had listened to 
in Italy, " that Englishmen might profit by the example 
of Italians." Similar books, many of which were trans- 
lated into English, signified a more important result 
than discussing problems of thought. The mixed 
assemblages meeting on a footing of equality proved 
that the position of women had been raised. Woman 
no longer occupied the fictitious position she had held 
during the Middle Ages, when,hfted by convention to 
a false height, she was in reality too often degraded. 
During the Renaissance woman was to become the 
equal of man. Even then the avowed object of con- 
versation was to promote friendly intercourse between 
1 Guazzo, f. 2IO. 2 ji)i(i,^ f. 14. 



THE COURTIER 8/ 

the sexes. Advice was given how best to conduct it ; 
questions too deep or subtle were not to be discussed, 
nor things spoken of out of place. Men were warned 
to refrain from rehearsing " friar's sermons to young 
gentlewomen when they are disposed to sport them- 
selves ; " ^ the learned were Hkewise to beware of 
all affectation and of patronizing attitudes. 

The woman of the Renaissance was in no sense of the 
word an inferior creature. Although in former times 
she had known only how to knit and sew, yet now, '' I 
am sure, I have seen the role of more than a thousand 
[women] who have been excellently seen in divinity, 
in philosophy, in physic, in music, in painting, and in 
all sciences." ^ Among the arguments advanced for the 
education of women it was urged, that they would 
thus be able to keep their household accounts, and 
write to their husbands without employing a secre- 
tary. Some maintained, however, that a woman able 
to read and write " will turn over Boccaccio only and 
write lascivious letters."^ Even in the sixteenth cen- 
tury the ''new woman," with her love of manly sports, 
was by no means unknown. " In my time I have 
seen woman play at tennis, practise feats of arms, 
ride, hunt, and do (in a manner) all the exercises 
besides that a gentleman can do." ^ But condemna- 
tion greeted her if she went too far. There were 
many opposed to her practising manly exercises, 
wishing her to preserve womanly grace and beauty.^ 

1 Delia Casa, p. 30. 2 Guazzo, f. 158. 3 /^/^.^ f. i^g b. 
* Castiglione, p. 220. ^ Ibid. 



8S ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

Some even called it "a monstrous and naughty 
thing to see a young girl use such liberty and 
boldness in her gesture, looks, and talk, as is proper 
to men."^ 

A description of the perfect woman has come down 
to us from the pen of more than one writer of the 
Renaissance. As a conversationalist she should have 
sweetness of voice, gravity of expression, and purity 
of meaning ; and although knowing a subject perfectly, 
should only speak of it with modesty.^ She must pos- 
sess, however, numerous other accomplishments, for 
even in the sixteenth century men were hard to please. 
"I will that this woman have a sight in letters, in 
music, in drawing or painting, and skilful in danc- 
ing and in devising sports and pastimes, accompany- 
ing with that . . . the other principles also that have 
been taught the courtier. And thus in conversation, 
in laughing, in sporting, in jesting, finally in every- 
thing, she shall be had in great price . . . and albeit 
staidness, nobleness of courage, temperance, strength 
of the mind, wisdom, and the other virtues a man 
would think belonged not to entertain, yet will I have, 
her endowed with them all." ^ 

V 

The courtier has been considered hitherto more in 
the spirit of the modern meaning of the word than in 
its Renaissance significance. Thus far his sports and 

1 Guazzo, f. 158. 2 /3iV., f, 115 d. 3 Castiglione, p. 221. 



THE COURTIER 89 

pastimes and the lighter side of his hfe have alone 
been noticed. His more serious aspect remains still 
to be regarded. The underlying shadow of slur which 
to-day unconsciously attaches itself, especially in a 
democratic community, to the idea of courtier, is of 
quite recent growth. In the sixteenth century there 
was no more honorable career open to a gentleman. 
Before the courtier there lay the paths of distinction 
and glory ; it was his task to fit himself to merit the 
success which lay ready before him. 

During the Middle Ages, when the clergy had almost 
exclusive charge of the intellectual requirements of the 
nation, skill at arms had alone been thought necessary 
for the gentleman. A great secular growth accom- 
panied, however, the new centrahzing tendency of 
the Renaissance. The court became, as it were, the 
nucleus of the nation ; from its centre stretched out in 
each direction countless threads which not only con- 
nected it with every activity in the land, but bound it 
in diplomatic relations with other countries. To fit 
the courtier for this development in the national life, 
a different education was necessary, which the new 
humanism in part provided. Its general nature, 
however, reacted on men in different ways ; some 
were to find their careers in diplomacy and statecraft, 
others in letters, still others in war, since that too had 
become a science. The courtier, properly speaking, 
was therefore to be found under all these aspects, as a 
diplomat and adviser to his prince, a literary man and 
scholar, and lastly as a soldier. 



90 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

A Striking difference can be found in comparing the 
English embassies sent to Rome in the sixteenth century 
with what they had been in former years. During the 
earUer ages, diplomatic relations with the Vatican 
had been transacted almost exclusively by churchmen. 
Adrian de Castello, Ghinucci, Giovanni and Silvestro 
Gigli, were among the better known Itahan prelates 
in the king's service, most of them holding English 
benefices. A change, however, was gradually effected, 
largely owing to the royal divorce and its consequences. 
Although churchmen were employed until the first 
quarter of the new century was over, courtiers were 
by degrees filling their places. Men like the Earls of 
Bedford and Wiltshire, Sir Francis Bryan, Sir Thomas 
Wyatt, and Sir Philip Hoby were beginning to conduct 
for England the new diplomacy of the Renaissance. 
Italians often accompanied them on their missions ; 
Sir Thomas SpinelH, Sir Gregory and John da Casale, 
Peter Vannes, and others, were all in the English ser- 
vice, but they were for the most part laymen, as were 
also the numerous Italian agents employed by Crom- 
well, and later by Cecil. 

The progress of the Reformation in England had 
naturally for its effect the withdrawal of all diplomatic 
charges from the Roman clergy, while at the same time 
it ended in breaking off direct intercourse with Rome. 
Courtiers were therefore more and more intrusted with 
the conduct of diplomatic affairs. This had been the 
case for some time already in Italy, although there the 
true reason lay rather in the Papacy being considered 



THE COURTIER 9I 

an Italian principality, so that those owing it allegiance 
could not well be in the service of other states. 

In advance of the rest of Europe, the career of the 
courtier as a diplomat had long been foreseen in Italy. 
In addition, however, his main function was thought to 
be as the adviser of his prince, informing him of the 
truth on every matter, and warning him when about to 
do wrong.^ Just as music, sports, and pastimes were 
held to be the flower of courtliness, so its fruit was in the 
proper advice to a prince, and in guarding him from 
evil.- It was the courtier's place to see to it that his 
prince should not be deceived by liars or flatterers ; to 
this end he ought to advise him, and spur him on to 
win further greatness. Regarding his personal relations 
to his lord, the courtier ought neither to flatter him, 
nor repeat scandal nor idle talk ; never to be forward 
and pushing, nor ask favors ; nor do such service as 
would put him to shame, nor even obey his master in 
" dishonest matters." If his prince was wicked, he 
should leave his service.^ 

For the courtier to be able to properly advise his 
prince, he ought to possess " readiness of wit, pleasant- 
ness of wisdom, and knowledge in letters.""* This last 
was the great change efl'ected by the Renaissance, which 
made the courtier wish to excel in branches which 
he had formerly despised. In Italy, men like Casti- 
glione and Navagero, who were courtiers, diplomatists, 
and poets at the same time, had set a personal ex- 

1 Castiglione, p. 297. ^ Ibid., pp. 130, 339. 

2 Ibid,, p. 298. * Ibid., p. 297. 



92 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

ample. The former not only bid his courtier speak 
well, having great care in the selection of words, but 
also cultivating and polishing his own language, to write 
*' both rhyme and prose." ^ In addition, he should be 
able to play on several instruments, and know also 
how to draw and paint.^ Most of all he ought to 
cultivate learning ; a knowledge of history would teach 
him many things of value. 

In studying the lives of great men, he would himself 
desire greatness, for who could read the mighty deeds of 
Caesar or Alexander, of Scipio and Hannibal, and not 
desire to be as they were, preferring the everlasting 
fame, which is attained even by death, to ordinary life ; 
" but he that savoreth not the sweetness of letters can- 
not know how much is the greatness of glory." ^ The 
courtier should also be learned in the humanities, read- 
ing the poets no less than the orators and historians. 

This new conception of learning as a necessary part 
of a gentleman's education had first obtained root in 
Italy. It was otherwise in France, where letters were 
long disparaged, and men thought it " a great villany 
when any one of them is called a clerk." * Castiglione 
looked forward to an improvement with the accession of 
Francis to the throne, but even later it was said that 
" learning is so little accounted of that a gentleman 
though he be scarce able to maintain himself, thinketh 
scorn to apply his mind to the study either of the laws 
or of physic." ^ In the Middle Ages, skill at arms was 

1 Castiglione, pp. 69 et seq., 85. ^ /^^v.^ p, 89 et seq. 

8 Ibid., p, 84. * Ibid., p. 82. ^ Guazzo, f. 84. 



THE COURTIER 93 

indeed the only necessary part of the gentleman's edu- 
cation, nor did this old ideal disappear altogether in 
the Renaissance. The courtier might still be a soldier, 
but he must be learned as well. The Italian courtly 
ideas can be seen reflected in England in the books of 
William Segar, who expressed himself forcibly on this 
subject. " Very rarely doth any man excel in arms 
that is utterly ignorant of good letters. . . . This only 
I say that the endeavor of gentlemen ought to be either 
in arms or learning, or in them both. And in my poor 
conceit, hardly deserveth he any title of honor that 
doth not take pleasure in the one or the other." ^ 

It was hardly to be expected that those brought up 
in the old system would look with favor on the impor- 
tance now assigned to learning. One of the favorite 
questions of the age, around which stormed a contro- 
versy, regarded the two rival professions of arms and 
letters. Since books, however, were mainly written by 
scholars, the arguments ended generally in their favor. 
Learning was said, first of all, to increase gentry. Let- 
ters being no less esteemed than martial feats, it fol- 
lowed that the gentry of the one was no less than of 
the other.^ But learning was superior to arms, since 
it might of itself achieve immortality, which arms could 
not do without its aid. Hence it followed that " the 
deeds of famous captains and worthy soldiers died with 
them, if they have not some to set them forth in writ- 
ing ; " unless they happened to join to their prowess in 

1 Honor, Military and Civil, p. 20O et seq. Cf. Spenser, 
Faerie Queene, II, iii, 40. ^ Guazzo, f. 86 b. 



94 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

arms a knowledge of polite letters.^ A fierce discussion 
raged in Italy on this subject ; such writers as Muzio 
who concluded in favor of the scholars were attacked 
by others who held the profession of arms to be the 
nobler because the older, and also because in many 
countries letters were unknown.^ Saviolo, who gave 
an English echo to the controversy, yielded prece- 
dence to arms, since princes obtained their titles and 
dominions merely by virtue of them, and only after- 
wards were able to foster learning. 

The courtier, however, in addition to being a scholar, 
should also be a soldier. As such his very conduct in 
war was outlined for him. In battle, for instance, he 
ought to separate himself from the crowd and undertake 
his feats alone, or with as few around him as possible. 
He was thought a fool if he exposed himself in such 
undertakings as capturing a flock of sheep, or even to 
be the first to scale the walls of a battered town. His 
deeds of valor he ought to perform in the presence of 
superiors, and if possible, before the eyes of the king, 
— for while it was wrong to seek undeserved praise, it 
should yet be looked for when due.^ 

There was, however, a quite different side to the 
Italian military influence in England. The Italians of 
the Renaissance have not commonly been regarded as 
a martial nation. Their achievements in other direc- 
tions obscured their feats in arms ; on the one hand, 

^ Guazzo, f. 104. 

2 Cf. Muzio, // Gendlhuomoy and Mora, // Cavaliere. ■ 
^ Castiglione, p. 113. 



1 



THE COURTIER 95 

an outlet for their military zeal was found in foreign 
service, while on the other, the comparative unimpor- 
tance of results achieved in their own wars has made 
these live chiefly in the memories of historians. Yet 
in the sixteenth century there was scarcely an army 
in all Europe which had not in it Italian officers and 
soldiers. Among commanders also, the Duke of Parma 
was considered the greatest general of the age, while 
the Trivulzi, Caraccioli, San Severini, and other famous 
captains in the French service were all Italians. Even 
in England, Italian soldiers of fortune could be found ; 
Petruccio Ubaldini served in the wars of Henry the 
Eighth and Edward the Sixth; in 1548 Captain Tiberio, 
with a force of Italians, garrisoned Haddington for Lord 
Grey de Wilton.^ Still later, a certain Captain Sassetti 
was described as an Italian soldier serving in Ireland,- 
while Sir Horatio Pallavicino, in the days of the Armada, 
served as a volunteer on a ship he had himself equipped. 
The especial importance of Italy in the warfare of 
the Renaissance came through its development of 
military science and military engineering. It was first 
in Italy that war was looked upon as an art, and fur- 
thermore, as a fitting occasion for the employment of 
the keenest intellects. Thus the first suggestion of a 
change in tactics can be found in Machiavelli's A7't of 
War^ while with Leonardo da Vinci began the study 
of modern artillery.^ It is therefore not surprising 

1 M. Hume, Chronicle of Henry V/fl, p. 200. 

2 Hist. Ms. Com., Hatfield House, H, 169. 

^ M. J. D. Cockle, Bibliography of Alilitary Books, p. xix et seq. 



96 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

that Italian engineers should be found in England at a 
comparatively early date. ' Jerome of Trevisi, who lost 
his life in the French wars of Henry the Eighth, fighting 
for his adopted country, was an engineer as well as a 
painter, no uncommon thing in an age when Michel- 
angelo designed the defences of Florence. Marco 
Savorgnano, one of the most distinguished miHtary 
engineers of his time, visited the EngHsh court in 
1 53 1, under the guidance of Marco Rafael, a con- 
verted Venetian Jew, who was then high in favor with 
the king. Still another engineer, whose name ap- 
pears frequently in matters of fortifications, was Sir 
John Portinari, for many years in the English royal 
service. 

The few Enghsh military books of this time were 
likewise largely compilations from Italian sources,^ 
but Italian books as well were often translated into 
English. One of the first of these was Whitehorne's 
rendering of Machiavelli's Art of War, which the trans- 
lator dedicated to Elizabeth as " the first fruits of a 
poor soldier's study." This book, which had been 
translated by Whitehorne for soldiers rather than for 
scholars, was intended by him, as he said, to make his 
countrymen no less invincible in the knowledge of war 
than they had hitherto been in its practice. 

Books such as Cataneo's Military Tactics and 
Count Giacomo Porcia's Precepts of War were also 
translated. Certain Italians condemned the practice 
of writing on fortifications, for the reason that foreigners, 

1 Cockle, p. viii. 



THE COURTIER 9/ 

if left untaught, would be obliged to employ Italian 
engineers.^ Tartaglia, however, wrote a great work on 
gunnery, dedicated by him to Henry the Eighth, which 
treated both of practice and theory, entering deeply 
into problems of trajectory and ballistics. It was fol- 
lowed by another work compiled by Cyprian Lucar 
from the best authorities on the subject ; and from the 
bibliography he gave of these, one can realize the ex- 
tent to which England was indebted to Italy in all 
matters of miUtary science. 

VI 

The knowledge of Italian possessed by Englishmen 
in the sixteenth century, and the means at the disposal 
of such as were anxious to learn the language, requires 
some consideration. 

At the court of Henry the Eighth, that monarch, who 
was fond of foreigners, and especially of Italians,- set 
the example by himself understanding their tongue. 
Among his many courtiers who knew the language 
were Lord Rochford, Lord Morley the translator of 
Petrarch, and the Earl of Surrey, who, though he 
never set foot in Italy (in spite of the pretty story told 
by Nash and Drayton), is yet said to have affected 
its dress, and employed an Italian jester in his house- 
hold. Others, too, such as the Earl of Wiltshire and Sir 

1 Cockle, p. xvi. 

2 Cal. State Pap.y Ven., IV, 287. " II Re medesimo ha molti 
Italiani . . . al suo servitio, di ogni professione." — Ubaldini, 
Add. Mss. Brit. Mus. 10169, f. 116 b. 

H 



98 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

Thomas Wyatt, had travelled in Italy, and the Earl of 
Bedford adopted Che sara sard for the motto of his 
house after the battle of Pavia, at which he was pres- 
ent. The two princesses, Mary and Elizabeth, hke- 
wise both knew Italian. A knowledge of the language 
spread rapidly among the upper classes, and increased 
still further during the reign of Ehzabeth ; to address 
one's sovereign with a few words of Itahan was indeed 
regarded as a mark of distinction.^ Elizabeth herself 
had learned the language as a child, and Roger Ascham 
declared that she spoke it perfectly at sixteen. Several 
of her Italian letters are still preserved, one to Catha- 
rine Parr written in 1544, and another more than 
twenty years later to the emperor. The testimony of 
Italians bears further witness to her proficiency in the 
language ; Giovanni Antonio Ferrice, in a poem he 
dedicated to her, praised her knowledge of the " soft 
Tuscan." ^ Pietro Bizari, the historian, also spoke 
favorably of her skill as a hnguist, and especially of 
her knowledge of Italian, which he said she had 
learned from Battista Castiglione, a gentleman of the 
privy chamber who was high in her favor.^ A knowl- 
edge of Italian was then widespread at court, and 
those who had not some smattering of it were the ex- 
ceptions. Florio indeed remarked of it that " the best 
speak it best, and her majesty none better ; "* for she 
" delights to speak to Italians." ^ Further illustra- 

1 L. Humphrey, op. cit. 2 j^g^ Bodleian. 

* Historia, 1569, p. 206. * Second Fruites, preface. 

fi First Fruites, ff. 1 1 b, and 18. 



THE COURTIER 99 

tions of the popularity of Italian might be given. 
Burleigh and Walsingham both made use of it fre- 
quently in their diplomatic correspondence. One of the 
Venetian envoys noted the fact that at a dinner given 
him by Cecil, where the entire Privy Council was present, 
the conversation was carried on chiefly in Italian, " almost 
all of them speaking our Italian tongue, or at least all 
understanding it." ^ Robert Cecil had travelled in 
Italy and was proficient in the language ; so were 
the Earl of Rutland and Countess of Bedford ; the 
Earl of Leicester had learned it in his youth, and even 
had Itahan musicians in his employ.^ Many others 
had Italians in their personal service ; thus Virginio 
Orsini, a Roman baron, begged Lord Essex to allow 
him to be numbered among his servants.^ Henry 
Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, had John Florio 
in his pay and patronage, and, according to him, 
rapidly acquired a knowledge of Italian. On every 
side could be seen evidences of the same keen desire 
to learn the language. Hubert Languet, in a letter to 
Sidney, alluded jestingly to the craze : '' It seems to me 
quite absurd that your countrymen should make such a 
point of speaking Italian well. . . . Perhaps you are 
afraid you will not persuade them to take your money 
unless you speak with perfect fluency."^ 

WiUiam Thomas, the author of the History of Ital}\ 

1 Cal. State Pap. Ven., VII, 524 et seq. 

2 Cotton Ms. Titus, B. VII, Brit. Mus. 

8 Hist. Ms. Com., Hatfield House, VI, 534. 
^ Letter of Jan. 2S, 1574. 



100 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

wrote also the first English manual of Italian, which 
appeared in 1550. This was in the form of a grammar 
followed by a dictionary, the former containing the 
usual classifications, the latter consisting chiefly of 
a compilation taken from earher Itahan works. The 
purpose of the book was to enable the reader better to 
understand Italian writers. In the author's judgment, 
Italian was gradually coming to be considered on the 
same plane with Latin and Greek. If in Italy, he said, 
they would only continue for another ten years the 
same kind of work they had accomplished in the past 
ten, " surely their tongue will be as plentiful as any 
of the other." In support of these arguments he men- 
tioned the various branches of science and history, 
eloquence and poetry, examples of which could be 
found in Italian. 

Thomas's Grammar, while still in manuscript, fell 
into the hands of Sir Walter Mildmay, the Chancellor 
of the Exchequer, by whom it was printed for such as 
might be anxious to learn the language. Similar man- 
uals were written, some of which were never published ; 
as, for instance, the Regole delta Lingua Toscana^ by 
Michelangelo Florio, a Florentine refugee and teacher 
of Italian, whose son later became the great English 
apostle of Italian culture. New methods of instruc- 
tion appeared from time to time : such as Lentulo's 
Gratnmar, " a very necessary book (in my concept) 
for all such as are studious of the Italian tongue."^ 

^ Ms. Cambridge University Library. 
2 Preface by Granthan, 



THE COURTIER TOI 

This was translated in 1575 by Henry Granthan and 
dedicated to the daughters of Lord Berkeley, who had 
been very anxious to learn the language. Even more 
significant testimony to the far-reaching knowledge of 
Italian can be found in a Latin method, translated by 
David Rowland, in 1578, from an Italian book. As he 
remarked in the preface, "Once every one knew Latin, 
and from that Italian was learned, and now the Italian 
is as widely spread." 

In 1575 a Frenchman in London, called Desainliens, 
better known however as Claudius Hollyband, 
published an Italian method, which was subsequently 
reprinted in an enlarged form, under the title of the 
Italian Schoolmaster. This he dedicated to Master 
John Smith (probably the same Smith who later 
became a friend of Giordano Bruno) in gratitude for 
his having selected him to be his Italian teacher, from 
among so many in London. The book contained both 
a grammar with rules of conversation and a series of 
dialogues, referring for the most part to the common- 
places of life, and chiefly of use to the English 
traveller in Italy. Occasionally the conversation 
bordered unconsciously on the humorous. Thus an 
ardent lover was made to say, in both Italian and 
English : " Ho, fair maiden, will you take me for your 
lawful spouse and husband, and I will love and serve 
you faithfully? Say yea; defer not so long." In the 
later edition of this book, following the dialogues, 
speeches and phrases were printed, " taken out of the 
best Italian authors." The method by degrees led up 



102 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

to the main feature of the book, the Novelle of Arnalt 
and Ltccenda, which, given in EngUsh and Itahan, was 
held out as an inducement and reward to study the 
language. Hollyband wrote also the Cainpo di Fior, 
or else the Flowery Field of Four Languages^ con- 
taining sentences and conversations in the form of 
more or less disconnected dialogues in Latin, French, 
Italian and English. The book, however, was of use 
only for beginners, and was in every way inferior to 
Florio's series of dialogues. 

John Florio, the son of an Italian Protestant refugee, 
and the translator of Montaigne, was to be the best 
known by far of the Italian teachers in England. He 
was probably educated first on the Continent, and 
afterwards at Oxford. He called himself " an English- 
man in Italian,"^ and certainly appears to have 
combined the double training. From his first youth he 
lived in an atmosphere of teaching. Early in life, before 
entering the Earl of Southampton's household, he had 
been tutor in foreign languages to Robert Barnes, the 
son of the Bishop of Durham. Later, during the 
reign of James the First, he became Italian reader to 
the queen. His celebrity, however, apart from his 
translation of Montaigne, arose chiefly from his books 
which helped to popularize Italian among the young 
gallants of the court. 

Florio made use of his books of instruction to give 
his own ideas on many subjects ; he thus combined the 
teaching of a foreign language with the expression of 

^ Second Fruites^ preface. 




-ji^u I'lrtute sm Limtc:ntn>,nohilis iirtc • 
Jfdius ore,. Itiiilus vcrtoi\ ,vhTth ovcrc 
- '^bm iiJImc.d diWucfhn-hititJim'iitvhra 
FL OFJVS . hac spmt'^ flmJus , ovtat ijtnans . 



rJocm/r^y'JrZ^ 



6"U^' 



THE COURTIER IO3 

personal opinions. The use of dialogue, the Italian 
and English being printed in parallel columns, aided 
him in this. Furthermore, he was able to say what he 
liked without fear of criticism. An instance of this 
freedom of speech will be found in his opinion of the 
English people : " a handicraftsman will be a mer- 
chant, a merchant will be a gentleman, a gentleman 
will be a lord, a lord a duke, a duke a king ; so that 
every one seeks to overcome another in pride." ^ 
He had other remarks to make as well ; the nobility, 
for instance, he found very courteous, but it was other- 
wise with the commons, especially toward strangers.^ 
His advice to the English people was that they should 
teach their children several languages, and not do as 
so many who studied foreign tongues, and "when 
they have learned two words of Spanish, three words 
of French and four words of Italian, they think they 
have enough, they will study no more." ^ On another 
occasion, an Italian in England, asked to give his 
opinion of the language, replied that it was good 
enough in its own country, but worthless beyond Dover. 
" What a shame it is, therefore, that an Englishman, in 
the company of strangers, should be unable to speak 
to them, and should thus stand dumb, mocked of them 
and despised of all. . . . What a reproach to his 
parents; what a loss to him."* 

In other dialogues the student could find expressed 
in Italian the ordinary conversations of the day ; thus, 

1 First FruUes, L 16 b. ^ Ibid., f. 51 <^. 

a Ibid., f.gb. * Ibid., f. 62 b. 



104 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

friends talked of going to see a comedy at the Bull, in 
spite of the sermons preached against theatres. A 
practical lesson in grammar was illustrated by a 
young man flirting with a girl, who went through 
the parts of the verb " to love " ; it ended by her accept- 
ing an invitation to the play j or again a youth bear- 
ing viola and lute goes to serenade his lady ; court 
gossip, the amusements of the day and even the price 
of shirts and stockings, were all introduced into these 
dialogues. 

Florio's first book, which had appeared in 1578, 
was followed by the Second Frtdtes in 159 1. In this 
new work he boasted that, having " ransacked and 
rifled all the gardens of fame throughout Italy " to 
adorn English orchards, he had given the reader " a 
taste of the best Italian fruits." 

The purpose of the book was to perfect one's knowl- 
edge of Italian, especially by making use of appropriate 
proverbs. These, it was said, both argued " a good 
conceit," and would prevent Italians from talking 
bookish, as they were inclined to do when conversing 
with strangers whose Itahan had been learned out of 
Guazzo or Castiglione. The Second Fridtes were 
intended likewise for the young gallants of the 
court, who had literary pretensions, " not unfit for those 
that embrace the language of the Muses." 

Florio's second book, like its predecessor, was in 
dialogue form. Some of the names of the speakers, 
Nolano and Torquato for instance, were probably 
selected to add interest, Giordano Bruno, who had been 



THE COURTIER IO5 

in England but shortly before, being usually known by 
the former name, while he also had made use of 
Torquato as a speaker in his own dialogues. The 
conversations, however, were for the most part ex- 
tremely commonplace, though answering their purpose 
in introducing an extended vocabulary. Quips and 
puns were of common occurrence all through the book. 
An imaginary journey to Italy was described, and 
doggerel rhymes on different cities, probably trans- 
lated into English by Florio himself, were quoted. 
Thus of Rome it was said : — 

In Roman court no sheep may dwell : 
But such as are thrice fleeced well; 

Who goes to Rome, and hath good store of pence, 
May soon return a priest or bishop thence.^ 

Florio had announced in the preface to the Second 
Fruites that he intended shortly to publish an " ex- 
quisite " Italian and English dictionary, which was 
intended neither for scholars exclusively, nor beginners, 
nor even for advanced students who had run through 
Guarini and Ariosto, Tasso and Boccaccio. It was to 
be of use to " the most complete " doctor even though 
he had the memory of Scaliger. "Well to know Italian 
is a grace of all grace " ; yet without knowing the 
language thoroughly, it was impossible to read Aretino 
or Doni, nor even understand Castelvetro or Caro, or 
any of the different Italian dialects. For all such 
purposes a dictionary was absolutely necessary. He 
compared his work to what Sir Thomas Elyot and 

1 Second Fruites, p. 109. 



I06 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 



Bishop Cooper had accomplished in Latin, and the 
Estiennes in Greek ; and lest any one might think that 
he had received too much assistance from the works 
of Alunno or Venuto, he bade his reader remember 
that a single letter in his dictionary contained more 
than twenty in theirs. 

Of the dictionary itself, not much need be said. It 
was a careful work of over five hundred pages, each 
Italian word being given with several English equiv- 
alents. Florio's books, however, formed as a whole 
a series more or less indispensable to the English 
student of Italian. Their number attests their pop- 
ularity, and the fact that so important a work as his 
dictionary should have been compiled at that time 
indicates a demand for similar work. 

Italian proverbs were likewise popular in Ehzabethan 
England. Close after the Second Fruifes, followed the 
Garden of Recreation, a collection of six thousand 
proverbs, for the use of English students of Italian. 
Sometimes such proverbs were printed in books which 
had otherwise no bearing on the subject. Charles 
Merbury, for instance, to his Discourse of Royal Mon- 
archy, published in 1581, added a '^ collection of Italian 
proverbs in benefit of such as were studious of that 
language, with an Italian preface to all courtiers and 
other gentlemen conversant in Italian." He main- 
tained that a knowledge of proverbs would aid them 
greatly in conversation, and teach them foreign cus- 
toms ; if his readers would only learn a few of them, 
in a short time it would seem as if they had suddenly 



,^ 



THE COURTIER 10/ 

been transferred to Italy and had returned thence, 

although in fact they had passed over neither seas nor 

mountains. 

VII 

The theoretical expression of the courtier has 
chiefly been noticed hitherto. His actions and ac- 
complishments, his tastes and conduct, as laid down 
by various writers in the Renaissance, have all been 
considered. The facts here brought together have been 
selected from the contemporary English translations 
of Italian books. The question may therefore well be 
asked : What was the effect of these books, and did 
they bring into England any new ideals of manners and 
education ? 

The translation and publication of numerous Italian 
manuals of courtesy and conversation, was more con- 
clusive in the sixteenth century in England of a 
demand for such books than it would have been in 
any subsequent age when printing was widely spread. 
It is by no means necessary, however, to remain 
satisfied with that. One has only to notice the 
numerous references in contemporary Enghsh liter- 
ature to such translations and search for their in- 
fluence in the English books themselves. Lastly, this 
influence can be observed in many English men and 
women who discovered in culture a new ideal to be 
striven for. 

The mention of Italian courtesy books in Eliza- 
bethan literature would suffice for a study in itself. 
The Cortegiano, the Galafeo, and Guazzo's Conversa- 



I08 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

tions especially were frequently referred to. Gabriel 
Harvey alluded to their great popularity at Cambridge, 
where every one had read them.^ In recognition of the 
author of the Courtier, the names of Castillo and 
Balthazar came to mean in the Enghsh language the 
perfection of courtesy ; Marston, Guilpin and Ben 
Jonson all employed the words in this sense. Thomas 
Lupton called the book a manual of true gentleman- 
hness;^ and Roger Ascham, the puritanical opponent 
of Italian influence, said in his recommendation of the 
work : " to join learning with comely exercises, Conte 
Baldessar Castiglione in his book Cortegiano doth 
trimly teach ; which book advisedly read and dili- 
gently followed but one year at home in England, 
would do a young gentleman more good, I wiss, than 
three years travel abroad spent in Italy." ^ So late as 
the eighteenth century, it was regarded by Dr. Johnson 
as the best work on good breeding ever written.* 

Courtesy books written in Enghsh were not very 
numerous in Tudor England. Even in such early works 
as Sir Thomas Elyot's Governotir, Laurence Hum- 
phrey's The Nobles and the Institution of a Gentle- 
ma7i, the influence of certain Italian writers is plainly 
evident, though not always acknowledged. Boccaccio 
and Patrizi, from whom the above mentioned writers 
borrowed, were, however, of a different type from the 
true writers of courtesy, whose influence became later 

1 Letter- Book, p. 79. 2 f Lupton, Civil and Uncivil Life, 

8 Scholemaster, p. 66. 

* Boswell, Life of Johnson, ed. G. B. Hill, V, 314. 



THE COURTIER IO9 

so noticeable in England. In William Segar, for in- 
stance, the influence and example of these Italian cour- 
tesy writers was apparent. In the Book of Honor and 
Arms, he decided a question of etiquette, by quoting 
as eminent authority the Duke of Urbino ; his sub- 
sequent work contained numerous allusions to Italian 
practices of chivalry and even made use of Italian ex- 
pressions. His argument on virtue as essential to 
nobility followed closely the example of Italian writers ; 
although himself garter king- of- arms, he further imi- 
tated them by maintaining that the pursuit of learning 
was in no way inferior to a military career ; no state, 
indeed, could be well governed " unless the governors 
thereof had studied philosophy." ^ 

George Pettie, in the preface to his translation of 
Guazzo's Conversations, was even more emphatic on 
the same subject. A soldier himself, he said that he 
ought not to be condemned for spending his time in 
writing, since learning was necessary to the military 
man. "Those which mislike study or learning in a 
gentleman are some fresh water soldiers, who think 
that in war it is the body which only must bear the 
brunt of all, not knowing that the body is ruled by the 
mind, and that in all doubtful and dangerous matters 
it is the mind only which is the man. . . . Therefore 
(gentlemen) never deny yourselves to be scholars, 
never be ashamed to show your learning ... it is 
only it which maketh you gentlemen, and seeing 
that the only way to win immortality is either to 

1 Honor, Military and Civil, p. 200 et seq. 



no ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

do things worth the writing, or write things worth 
the reading." 

If one idea could be picked out as the dominant 
thought in Italian courtesy books, it was that the out- 
ward graces of man should all be cultivated by educa- 
tion. Such education, however, was to be something 
more than a narrow book learning, and to rest on a 
broad basis of life. The courtier should be learned, 
said Pettie, in order that he might be able to properly 
advise his prince in the government of the state.^ It 
was for this reason also that Castighone wished his 
courtier to be accomplished in so many things. The 
courtier, however, was to be a soldier as well, and thus 
the new education was grafted on to the military ideal. 
Many Englishmen were to exemplify it ; Sidney and 
Raleigh were both scholars and soldiers ; so too were 
Gascoigne, Turbervile, Pettie, Whitehorne, Bedingfield 
and Hitchcock, to mention only some of the names 
of English poets and translators, who were to prove 
that the Italian idea of the soldier as a man of cultiva- 
tion had likewise taken root in England. 

In the Renaissance, when the encouragement of 
learned men was almost a matter of state policy, the 
numerous small Italian courts formed centres of 
patronage for the needy scholar and poet. In Eng- 
land, on the other hand, where similar centres did not 
exist, and the royal court did not entirely fill their 
place, this patronage was effected rather by the nobihty, 
who in the sixteenth century began to regard them- 

1 Guazzo, preface. 




'^y n^y &.^Z4^^^J^.^^ ^^t 



iC-Ct}tZ4-C>^ 



THE COURTIER III 

selves iib LUC protectors of learning and the arts. Their 
travels abroad had both familiarized them with the 
Itahan example, and at the same time destroyed 
their prejudices against foreigners which existed among 
other classes in England. Without mentioning the 
numerous literary men in the time of Shakespeare who 
lived under the friendly protection of great noblemen, 
among Italians in England, Pietro Bizari dedicated his 
History to the Earl of Bedford, Saviolo his Practise to 
the Earl of Essex, " whose encouragement of letters 
has won for him the title of the Students' McEcenas^ 
Among Florio's patrons likewise were the Earls of 
Rutland and Southampton, and Lucy, Countess of 
Bedford, while he in his praise of Leicester, his first pro- 
tector, called him thrice fortunate in having had such a 
herald of his virtues as Edmund Spenser. '' Courteous 
Lord, Courteous Spenser, I know not which hath pur- 
chased more fame, either he in deserving well of so 
famous a scholar, or so famous a scholar in being so 
thankful without hope of requital to so famous a 
lord." 1 

In other ways as well Itahan examples were followed 
in England. The English courtier, in the sixteenth 
century, hke his Italian brother, desired to shine 
in the cultivation of letters. It is only necessary to 
glance at the names of those who then wrote verse and 
were in fact known as " courtly makers." The Earl of 
Surrey, Sir Thomas VVyatt, Lord Rochford, Lord Mor- 
ley. Lord Oxford, Sir Thomas Sackville, Sir Philip 

^ Second Fritites, preface. 



112 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

Sidney and Sir Walter Raleigh were only some of the 
better known courtier poets. What deserves espe- 
cially to be noticed is not so much the poetical 
faculty, possessed by a few imitators for the most part 
of Italian models, as the vast spread of education 
among the classes who previously had despised it. 
A literary taste had been awakened in them by the 
study of foreign models, and they now endeavored 
to accomplish in England what had already been done 
in Italy. 

The rapid spread of education in the Renaissance, 
no less than its transformation, deserves to rank among 
the most marked features of the age. Especially in 
Italy, a universahty of knowledge had characterized the 
greater minds of the sixteenth century. Later, in 
England, this same broad ideal of cultivation can also 
be found in such men as Crichton and Raleigh. The 
new humanism in all its breadth, no longer confined 
to any narrow group of scholars, left its mark in the 
education of Italian women. In England, as well, 
women, no longer satisfied to remain in their former 
sphere and anxious to follow the example of their 
Italian sisters, desired to shine in the pursuit of letters. 
Lady Jane Grey still passes for a wonder of erudition, 
and Queen Elizabeth is said to have known eight 
languages. Women Hke the Countesses of Bedford 
and Pembroke were the friends and patrons of literary 
men. In many ways the great change which had come 
over womanhood in the Renaissance was apparent. To 
give a single illustration. In 1550, Anne Cooke, who 



I 



THE COURTIER II3 

later became the mother of Francis Bacon, translated 
into English some of the sermons of the famous Sien- 
ese preacher, Bernardino Ochino, then a refugee in 
England. Her mother, it appeared, had often re- 
proved her for her pursuit of Italian, considering it a 
godless study, and, therefore, a waste of time. This 
book was intended to prove the contrary, in revealing 
the spiritual side of the Italian nature. It showed, 
however, another side as well, — a touch of conscious 
pride in the idea that it was by a woman's work that 
the book had been translated. Although it were more 
fitting, she wrote, for " doctors of divinity " to meddle 
with such matters than young girls, yet now, " through 
the honest travail of a well-occupied gentlewoman and 
virtuous maiden, they speak in English. ... If 
ought be erred in the translation, remember 'tis a 
woman's, yea, a gentlewoman's, who commonly are 
wonted to live idly, a maiden who never gadded farther 
than her father's house to learn the language." 

In the age of Ehzabeth men and women alike were 
to receive the benefit of Italian humanism as it spread 
through Europe. The olden days, when the upper 
classes could afford to hve in ignorance, had given way 
to a new age, when learning was taught from child- 
hood. Even in the sixteenth century, merit meant 
more and birth less than is commonly supposed. Car- 
dinal Wolsey, Thomas Cromwell Earl of Essex, and 
Lord Burleigh were all of ordinary extraction. Edu- 
cation, however, often took the place of genius, in 
raising those of low descent to the highest places in 



114 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 



I 



the land. At one time even the king complained 
that positions of great responsibility had to be in- 
trusted to those of low origin, who alone were fitted 
for them, on account of the lack of education on the 
part of the nobles. It was to remedy this and pre- 
serve their former ascendency that noblemen sought 
its benefits ; while to the commoner, who obtained an 
education, it went far to remove differences of rank, to 
level class distinctions, and place him on an equahty 
with those who were his superiors by position. In 
England, as in Italy, it came to be acknowledged that 
scholarship was a noble profession, and that by virtue 
of it scholars were gentlemen.^ Every one was now 
interested in learning. There was a time, wrote 
Richard Willes, when logic and astrology so wearied 
the minds of scholars that true philosophy was almost 
forgotten, eloquence defaced, the languages exiled ; that 
time was past. Not long since, happy was he who had 
any skill in Greek ; while if he could make a Greek 
verse, he was thought a great scholar. " Nowadays 
who studieth not rather the Hebrew language? " ^ All 
ranks and classes bore witness to this new zeal for 
education, which had swept over the Enghsh nation 
and placed side by side with the old feudal distinctions 
a new field of honor in learning. 

^ Segar, Honor and Arms, p. 36. 

2 Anglerius, History of Travel, I577> preface. 



CHAPTER III 
THE TRAVELLER 



The first recorded description of Italy by an English- \^^^ \ 
man is in Sir Richard Guylforde's diary of 1506.^ This 
was written entirely in the spirit of the Middle Ages 
and failed to take into account the new Renaissance 
civilization. Its author passed through Verona and 
Mantua on his way to Palestine, scarcely making 
a comment on v/hat he saw. In Venice he was most 
impressed by the munitions of war stored in the arsenal. 
He went on excursions to Moryaii [Murano] where he 
remarked that glass was made, and saw " many houses 
of rehgion that stand in the sea." He was present, 
moreover, at the Doge's marriage to the Adriatic, 
which he described very briefly. " And so they rowed 
in to the sea with the assistance of their Patriarch, and 
there spoused the sea with a ring. . . . The Duke let 
fall the ring into the sea, the process and the ceremo- 
nies whereof were too long to write." He expressed 
some surprise, it is true, at the beauty of Venetian 
buildings, but failed altogether to observe any diifer- 
ence between the Hfe of Italy and that of England, 
still half in the Middle Ages. 

1 Camden Society^ 185 1. 
"5 



Il6 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

A very similar account was written some ten years 
Ji after by Sir Richard Torkington/ who also passed 
through Italy on his way to the Holy Land. He saw 
Milan and Padua, and later Naples and Rome, but 
almost the only thing which impressed him was a 
banquet in Venice, where there was music and danc- 
ing, and the guests had basins and ewers in which to 
wash. The charm of Italy was thus felt neither by 
Torkington nor Guylforde. It was to be otherwise 
with the travellers of the next generation, when the 
new ideas brought in by the Renaissance had had 
time to develop. 

There were several reasons why Englishmen should 
wish to visit Italy. In former years the numerous 
churchmen and diplomats, pilgrims and soldiers of 
fortune, who passed to and fro between the two coun- 
tries, brought back with them admiring recollections 
of their travels. The scholars also, on their return, 
could give glowing accounts of Italian universities, 
then far in advance of their own. Moreover, the 
growth of the Renaissance in England developed the 
new taste for travel. With it there went a keen 
desire to see the country, which was celebrated no 
less for containing the treasures of former ages than 
for the splendor of its actual life. A knowledge of 
Italy having once spread from university to court the 
desire to share its culture drew across the Alps the 
cultivated classes of all Europe. Pious Catholics still 
went there, and eager students, attracted by its 

1 Oldest Diary of English Travel. 



THE TRAVELLER II7 

institutions of learning. The new type of traveller, 
however, who was neither diplomat, scholar nor 
pilgrim, now found his way in increasing numbers 
to Italy. 

Sir Thomas Hoby and William Thomas, two English- 
men who were in Italy shortly before the middle of 
the sixteenth century, were both typical of this move- 
ment, and can be singled out from among so many 
by the records of their travels, written entirely from 
this new point of view. Italy itself was their goal, its 
sights the object of their visit. They were travellers 
for a purpose, who looked forward to the education 
and experience they should acquire which might be 
of service to them in their future careers. Unlike 
their English predecessors, they took interest in 
everything they saw, noting carefully the sights and 
customs of the strange country. William Thomas' 
observations are hardly in any way inferior to those of 
the Italian travellers of the age, from whose accounts he 
had profited. His keenness of penetration and ready 
sympathy with a foreign culture fitted him peculiarly for 
the work he undertook. The avowed purpose of his 1 
History of Italy, written after five years of residence 
there, and first published in 1549, vvas by a selection 
of examples from Italian history to enable Englishmen 
to see how a nation had been enriched through peace 
and concord and made poor by strife. The histori- 
cal portion of the work was, however, the least impor- 
tant. Its real interest and merit lay in the fact of its -" 
being a guide to Italy, full of antiquarian and political 



Il8 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

information, and containing, moreover, the impressions 
and experiences of one of the most cultivated men of 
the age. It was unquestionably the best English 
\account of any foreign nation written before the seven- 
''teenth century ; and its popularity, to judge only from 
the editions it passed through, points it out as an im- 
portant channel by which a knowledge of Italy filtered 
into England. 

Sir Thomas Hoby had gone to Italy after having 
been at Cambridge, in order both to complete his 
education and prepare himself for public life, since 
" the Itahan nation which seemeth to flourish in civihty 
most of all others at this date " ^ then offered the great- 
est opportunities to the student of politics as well 
as of culture. Hoby kept a record of his foreign 
travels in a diary, intended, however, only for private 
use, and which has never been pubHshed.^ In shrewd- 
ness of observation it certainly does not begin to com- 
pare with Thomas' work. It is of considerable interest, 
nevertheless, in presenting without literary artifice the 
Italian experiences of an English gentleman of culture, 
in the middle of the sixteenth century. Hoby's pur- 
pose in travelling was to see what he could of Italy. 
With this in mind, he described the different Italian 
cities one after the other, with more repetition than 
variety. The ruins and antiquities of the ancient 
world chiefly attracted his curiosity; unlike Thomas, 
he never moralized on such sights, and rarely con- 

1 Thomas, History of Italy, preface. 

2 British Museum, Egerton Mss., 2148. 



THE TRAVELLER II9 

cerned himself with objects of merely historic in- 
terest. One would almost judge from his impressions 
that he was satisfied rather with outward appearances 
than the inner character of things. Some of the chief 
elements of interest in Hoby's diary can be found in 
his own personal experiences, which afford glimpses 
of Italian life in the Renaissance. The celebrated 
Hurtado de Mendoza, the Spanish governor of Siena, 
showed him great courtesy while there, as did, on 
another occasion, the young Marquis of Capistrano at 
Amalfi. The important influence Italy had on Hoby 
was thus the impression he derived from its courtly 
life, which led him later to undertake his famous trans- 
lation of the Courtier. With William Thomas, on the 
other hand, the influence had been mainly political; 
he typified in some degree the serious traveller, while 
in Hoby there was something of the dilettante, who 
travefled because to do so was the fashion. 

The tide of foreign travel in Italy began in the reign 
of Henry the Eighth. Hoby remarked the numbers 
of Englishmen he met in every Italian city, while 
Thomas wrote that in no region of the world were 
''half so many strangers as in Italy, specially of 
gentlemen, whose resort thither is principally under 
pretence of study." ^ At this time, however, the 
English travellers came almost exclusively from the 
gentry and the court circle. A common impress of 
class appears to animate them ; all alike seem to 
have passed through one mould. Even Thomas, who 

1 Op. cit.y p. 2. 



120 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

was above most prejudices, contrasted the Italian uni- 
versities, whose students were nearly all gentlemen, 
with the English colleges, with their " mean men's 
children set to school in hope to live upon hired learn- 
ing." 1 

The desire to travel, however, had not as yet pene- 
trated very deeply in England, beyond the narrow 
circle who then alone were conscious of the attraction 
of Italy. The English travellers of this period repre- 
sent, for this reason, a unity of type never afterwards 
attained. They ought, moreover, to be judged not 
as travellers alone : often the traveller and the cour- 
tier were only different aspects of the same man, 
who looked upon travel as a necessary element 
in the perfection of the courtly type. Travel was 
thus intended solely for the upper classes, who 
would bring back with them on their return the 
new foreign culture. More than any other element, 
it familiarized England with the achievements of the 
Renaissance. 

With the vast diffusion of Itahan influence in the 
second half of the sixteenth century, a gradual evolu- 
tion took place in the whole idea of travel. Already, 
with Thomas and Hoby, the type of traveller had 
begun to differentiate, and these differences were 
later to widen still more.) One type was that of the 
dilettante pleasure-seeker, who travelled because it 
was fashionable, and returned to England with all the 
affectations and vices of the foreign country. -^The 

1 Op. ciL, p. 3. 



THE TRAVELLER 121 

Other regarded travel almost entirely from an educa- 
tional point of view, showing in his character an in- 
clination toward puritanism, and in his work a tend- 
ency to specialization. There were many gentlemen in 
England whom all the " siren songs of Italy " could 
never turn aside/ while the books on Italy which now 
appeared in England, as translations or otherwise, 
were not so much general accounts as detailed de- 
scriptions of different parts of the country. Such, for 
instance, were Turler's Naples, Lewkenor's Venice, 
Marlianus' Rojtie, and Dallington's Tuscany? In 
reading these later works, one is able to realize the 
extent to which Italy had degenerated. Venice alone 
remained comparatively pure amid degradation and ser- 
vility elsewhere. Dallington especially wrote from this 
new point of view, which regarded the Italians as hav- 
ing little more to teach Englishmen. Even their 
learning was a thing of the past, and in their universi- 
ties, " ye shall scarcely find two that are good Gre- 
cians." ^ 

The same reasons which once induced men to cross 
the Alps no longer held good. Only the arts con- 
tinued to draw the foreign student. Architecture and 
music were then in their prime, and serious minded 

1 Ascham, Scholemaster, p. 74 ei seq. 

2 The Grand Duke of Tuscany complained of this book to 
King James, who gave orders for it to be publicly burned in 
the cemetery of St. Paul's, and for its author to be imprisoned 
at the Grand Duke's pleasure (Archivio Mediceo, Florence, 
4185). 

^ Dallington, Tuscany^ p. 62. 



122 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

men like Inigo Jones and John Dowland were still 
able to learn new lessons in Italy. It was quite 
different with the ordinary traveller. The purely edu- 
cational value of travel had, by degrees, been slighted, 
but the growing appreciation of art, no less than the 
ruins of antiquity, now influenced him. His point of 
view had changed, however. In place of the unquali- 
fied admiration of former years, there had arisen, espe- 
cially in political matters, a conscious superiority in 
the Englishman, which often governed his judgment. 
The dilettante, on the other hand, regarded travel 
in a somewhat different light, and was soon to bring 
ridicule on himself in his affectation of foreign fash- 
ions, which he carried back with him to England. 
"A great number of us never thought in ourselves 
why we went (on travels) but a certain tickling hu- 
mour to do as other men had done. ... I think ere 
it be long, like the mountebanks of Italy, we travellers 
shall be made sport of in comedies," wrote Sir Philip 
Sidney to his brother. The " nice travellers who re- 
turn home with such queasy stomachs, that nothing 
will down with them but French, Italian or Spanish,"^ 
were condemned by many. Especially censured were 
those " who having gotten a fond affected phrase of 
speech, or some conceited togs in their habit, would 
be accounted great travellers." ^ The dilettante trav- 
eller abroad became the "Italianate Englishman" at 
home, who was responsible for bringing the idea of 

1 Guazzo, preface by G. Pettie. 
^ Lewkenor, Venice, prefacCt 



THE TRAVELLER 1 23 

travel into disfavor, and largely for causing the reaction 
against Italy. He is of interest not only in himself as 
a type, but as the last creation in the evolution of ' 
Enghsh travel in the sixteenth century. 

II 

English books on the art of travel were a somewhat • 
late development in the Hterature of the sixteenth cen- 1 
tury. In this as in many other things practice had 
preceded theory. After it had finally been accepted 
that travelling was necessary as the finishing touch to 
an education, its philosophical justification was sought 
for, and advice in plenty was given as how best to 
profit from it. The whole theory of travel was dis- 
cussed in this rational spirit of inquiry, and certain 
definite results arrived at. 

One of the greatest effects of the Renaissance had 
been to magnify the importance of the central power 
of government to a degree unknown since the days of 
the Roman Empire. This resulted more and more 
in making the welfare of the state a final test in every- 
thing. The important question at issue in regard to 
travel was with respect to its advantage to one's coun- 
try. Its apologists tried naturally to prove it of posi- 
tive benefit to the state. " If there be anything in the 
world that will bring a man into consideration of his 
own state, surely it is travel." ^ It was shown, first 
of all, that the desire to travel was characteristic of 
" noble and virtuous natures." The baser sort might 

1 Tuder, Traveller, p. 38. 



124 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

be satisfied to remain in their own country; nobler 
natures were only contented when they imitated the 
heavens, which were in continual motion.^ This rather 
curious idea was frequently expressed by others as well.^ 
Another argument was based on the antiquity of travel. 
It was said that Homer had tried to portray in Ulysses 
'^the most perfect and accomplished gentleman of 
Greece," that he praised him chiefly because he had 
travelled in foreign lands, and noted their customs.^ 
One writer even mentioned a long list of names, begin- 
ning with Noah and Jupiter, and selected impartially 
from sacred and profane history, to prove that the 
heroes of every nation in all times had been travellers. 
^' These men think it a great stain, and dishonor to 
the liberty which nature hath given them (to be cos- 
mopolites, that is, citizens of the whole world), and yet 
to be restrained within the narrow precincts of a little 
country."* 

The distinguished ancestry and noble motives of 
the traveller having thus been demonstrated, it was 
no less easy to prove his utility to the state. He had 
to make up his mind that the purpose of his travels 
was to ripen his knowledge, the object of which was 
the service of his country.^ In travelling abroad, he 
ought for that very reason, to seek only profit, and 

1 Direction for Travailers. 

2 Cf. Dallington, Method for Travel, 

^ Lewkenor, Venice, preface. * Directioit for Travailers. 
^ Dallington, Method for Travel ; Sidney, Letter to his 
Brother. 



THE TRAVELLER 12$ 

after he had well spent his time, to be ready at his 
country's service, whenever the occasion demanded.^ 
It was generally recognized that travelling without 
some definite purpose in view was useless. On the 
other hand, " those who for a good cause depart their 
country, are as men of a singular and divine quality."- 
The necessary qualifications of the traveller were laid 
down without difficulty. Women were debarred as 
bringing suspicion upon themselves.^ Young men Hke- 
wise were considered too frivolous. The proper age 
was said to be between forty and sixty.'* 

The general theory of travel was thus mapped out 
for the prospective traveller. This was contained at first 
in letters of advice, but it later became systematized in 
books, till with Dallington and Palmer ^ an entire anal- 
ysis was presented in the form of diagrams, in which 
all possible methods and objects of travel were sub- 
divided into classes. Travellers, for instance, were said 
to be both regular and irregular, and the first were 
either voluntary, involuntary or non-voluntary. To 
mention only the last class, this included ambassadors, 
messengers and spies, and soldiers in time of war. The 
many subdivisions are, however, far too numerous to de- 
scribe. The writer elaborated at length each separate 
heading, working out his plan from the diagrams. In 
similar fashion the different kinds of knowledge the 

^ Direction for Travailers ; Lewkenor, op. cit. 

2 F. Meres, Palladis Tatnia, p. 237. ^ Turler, op. cit., p. 9. 

* W. Bourne, Treasure for Travellers. 

^ Essay on Travel. 



126 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 



traveller should possess before beginning his journey 
were presented in tabular form. He should try to 
perfect himself in the sciences, in virtues " moral and 
divine," and in the ornamental qualities, not only 
languages, but skill at arms, music, dancing and por- 
traiture.^ 

The important question was with regard to what the 
traveller should observe, and the advantages he ought to 
derive from his travels. The first was easily answered. 
The traveller ought to acquire while abroad both facts 
and ideas. Whoever wished to hold public office should 
study the characteristics of different nations, to enable 
him to see their good and avoid their bad sides ; ^ a 
knowledge of facts which included a general acquaint- 
ance with the country, its products and trade, its armed 
strength, and political alliances and also its revenues 
and taxes, was useful. A knowledge of ideas was 
far more difficult to obtain, since it dealt witli the 
religion, laws and education of foreign countries.^ 
While any one could travel abroad, few only were 
capable of searching the deep meanings of things, 
and comparing the customs and governments of dif- 
ferent nations.^ 

That the educational value of travel was more than 
mere talk and idle theory can be seen from contempo- 
rary letters. Francis Davison, for instance, carried with 

^ Palmer, op. cit., p. 37 et seq. 

2 Relation of Petruccio Ubaldini, Ms. cit., f. i. 

^ Sidney, Letter to his Brother ; cf. Bacon, Essay on Travel. 

'^ Direction for Travailers. 



THE TRAVELLER 12/ 

him on his continental tour over sixty " relations " or 
descriptions of foreign countries, all of which were in 
Italian, with the exception of one in Latin.^ Later, in 
writing to his father the Secretary, to whom he ex- 
plained that his time had been occupied in reading the 
history and policy of nations, he said : " I am ashamed 
of myself that I have no new relation or discourse ready 
of some of these parts of Italy. . . . My promised re- 
lation of Tuscany your last letter hath so dashed as I 
am resolved not to proceed withal. ... In the mean- 
time I go on with my studies, contenting myself with 
the profit and use I make, without displaying it to 
others." And again — "Touching giving some proof 
to yourself and others, whether I have made the same 
use of our travel in Italy that it pleased you to think I 
did in Germany, [a relation of Saxony], I have gath- 
ered and observed divers particulars both in Tuscany, 
and some other places, which I forbear to reduce into 
an absolute discourse before I hear how my Lord ac- 
cepted of my other." 

The chief advantage to be derived from travel was the 
acquisition of knowledge, and the fact that the infor- 
mation obtained would fit a man to be of service to 
his state, and give good advice to his prince.^ This 
last idea was especially popular in the sixteenth cen- 
tury. It can be found in Sidney and Lewkenor, who 

1 Harleian Ms., Brit. Mus., 298, f. 154. 

2 Add. Mss., Brit. Mus., 4i2i,f. 265; 4122, ff. 111,139. Also 
cited in Davison's Works, edited by Harris Nicolas, 1826. 

^ Bourne, op. cit. 



128 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

regarded it almost as the final justification of travel. 
It was, in a way, another side to Castiglione's belief that 
the ultimate purpose of the courtier was to advise his 
prince. 

In spite of the many advantages offered by travel, it 
was useless to try and conceal its dangers. " Such is 
our nature, especially of us English, that as we admire 
and entertain strange artificers before our own, so we 
wonder at, and more willingly entreat of learning with 
the learned foreigners, than with our own native coun- 
trymen."^ In another direction, this exposed the 
English traveller to the temptations of foreign countries, 
and especially of Italy, " for Italy moveth most of our 
travellers to go and visit it, of any other state in the 
world." ^ The danger of religion and morals should 
therefore be guarded against, the last especially, since 
"our [English] nature is prone to imitate outlandish 
vices." ^ 

The extent to which the idea of travel, and its edu- 
cational function, had been developed, may be judged 
from the numerous books on the subject. It was sup- 
posed to teach experience and wisdom, to refine 
manners, and give instruction in general conduct.^ 
It was likewise intended to bring the traveller in con- 
tact with foreign scholars, with whom he was urged 
to maintain a correspondence after he had left their 
country.^ 

^ Direction for Travailers. * Ibid. 

2 Palmer, op. cit., p. 42. ^ Bacon, Essay on Travel. 

^ Direction for Travailers. 



THE TRAVELLER 1 29 

Regarding the part played by Italy in such books, 
it should be said that invariably reference was made to 
it as being the foreign country of greatest interest to 
Englishmen, while in addition, Italian examples were 
generally made use of as illustrations. Often, too, 
methods of travel preceded the guide-books. Turler's 
account of Naples followed his manual, while Lew- 
kenor's advice on the subject was in the preface to his 
translation of Contarini's Venice. 

The EHzabethan Age thus developed a theory of 
travel. It found in it an educational element of great 
value, and regarded it half as a science, half as an art. 
The different works on travel gave the criteria for the 
judging of foreign countries. The traveller of the Re- 
naissance regarded himself as no teller of idle tales but 
as a skilled observer engaged almost in a solemn duty 
toward his country. In this high sense of public duty, 
and in its ethical and educational sides, the strength 
of the Renaissance theory of travel can at once be seen. 
At the same time, the very loftiness of the ideal aimed 
at was the cause of its one-sidedness. The traveller, 
in theory, was animated only by a stern sense of duty, 
which made of him almost a slave for the benefit of 
his country. There was no place in this conception 
for the pleasure-seeker, nor even for the most culti- 
vated of dilettantes. In the ideas of the English 
Renaissance, travel was never regarded as a rational 
amusement. 



K 



I30 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 



III 



The amount and variety of information given to the 
traveller about to set out on his journey was further 
evidence of the great popularity of travel in the Eliza- 
bethan Age. Instruction and advice was offered him 
in plenty. He was told where he ought to go, how 
he should act, and what he was especially to look for 
in Italy. For Italy was always the final goal in the 
grand tour. To Italy " all nations of Christendom do 
flock." ^ Dallington for a similar reason advised his 
traveller to leave it for the last, since "we best re- 
member the last impressions." The other countries 
traversed on the journey were of secondary considera- 
tion, if not in importance, at least in attraction. To 
follow the Enghsh traveller on his Italian journey, to 
note his quahfications, the advice given him, the sights 
he saw, and the benefits he derived from his travels 
ought, therefore, to present certain elements of in- 
terest. 

He went abroad as a rule fresh from the university, 
where he had received a classical education. In rare 
cases did he possess more than a smattering of the 
modern languages. 

It was to remedy this that the traveller's first care in 
Italy was usually to learn the language ; the testimony 
of all points to this ; thus Hoby studied Italian at 
Padua, and afterwards went alone on a journey through 

1 Sandys, Speculimi Etcropcz, a Relation of the State of Re- 
ligion, sig., M, 2 b. 






THE TRAVELLER I3I 

southern Italy " to absent myself for a while out of 
Englishmen's company for the tongue's sake." Francis 
Davison likewise passed much of his time in " writing, 
speaking and reading Italian,"^ and Robert Dalling- 
ton, who placed the learning of languages among the 
great advantages to be derived, advised the traveller 
who did not care to settle in Florence to try either 
Prato or Siena, where the speech was as good and the 
expense far less.^ Of all methods employed in study- 
ing the language, conversation was considered the 
best ; the traveller was bidden to converse with all 
classes of people. With his master he ought to read 
preferably some modern comedy, and he should also" 
attend lectures on the grammar of the language. 
" Privately he may for his pleasure read poetry, espe- 
cially if at his return he mean to court it ; but for 
his profit, if he be a man of means and likely here- 
after to bear charge in his country, or if a man of 
endeavors and wiUing to prefer himself by service, I 
wish him to history." ^ 

Rome was the principal place to be avoided on the 
journey. " Let them beware of Rome," wrote Thomas 
Palmer.* Dallington likewise advised against going 
there because of its being the seminary of English 
fugitives. He also warned his traveller of the Jesuits ; 
" these men I would have my traveller never hear except 
in the pulpit, for, being eloquent, they speak excellent 
language." This was not the case with members of 

1 Add. Mss., Brit. Mus., 4122, f. 43. 

2 Method for Travel. ^ Ibid. * op. cit., p. 44. 



132 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

Other orders, who were often of use in improving one's 
knowledge of the language, and frequently proved to 
be pleasant companions. One last warning was to be 
careful not to carry books prohibited by the Inquisi- 
tion, as they were likely to cause trouble when trunks 
were examined, which was done in every city. 

The traveller was advised to follow the custom of the 
country as far as possible ; whoever lived after his own 
fashion, it was said, made a laughing-stock of himself, 
and never improved his own barbarous manners.^ 
" Nowhere more than in Italy do the three golden 
rules of Fi'ons aperta, Lingua parca, Mens clausa, hold 
good. Be friendly to all, familiar to a few, and speak 
but seldom. In countenance be as courteous as you 
can ... in talk as affable as you shall see cause ; but 
keep your mind secret unto yourself, till you come to 
those whose hearts are as yours." ^ 

Last of all advice was given regarding the amount of 
money needed by the traveller. A hundred and fifty 
pounds was considered by many to be ample for a 
year's travel ; two hundred " were superfluous, and to 
his hurt." ^ Yet Edward Smyth, the tutor and com- 
panion of Francis Davison, in writing to the latter's 
father, the secretary of state, said that two hundred 
pounds would hardly suffice them, although he had 
never before endured so much hardship to save money. 
" I have hitherto gone to the market, and as frugally 
as I could, made our provision of all our necessaries ; 

^ Turler, p. 21. ^ Direction for Travailers. 

^ Dallington, Method for Travel. 



THE TRAVELLER 1 33 

and albeit we have not at any time more than one 
dish, and that not very costly neither, yet, with the 
rent of our chamber, our weekly expenses amount very 
nearly to forty shillings, besides apparel, books, and 
many other trifling charges which I see cannot be 
avoided, especially so long as we are in these parts, 
where in truth such are not fit to remain as cannot 
eat oil, roots, salad, cheese and such like cheap dishes, 
which Mr. Francis can in no wise digest, and any good 
thing else whatsoever is at very great rate ; we are nec- 
essarily compelled to spend the more, and yet not so 
much as other gentlemen of our nation in this town do 
make show of." ^ The traveller was advised to carry 
his money in four bills of exchange, " with letters of 
advice, to be paid him quarterly." Regarding the 
ordinary rates of expense, they would be about as fol- 
lows : ten gold crowns a month for his own board and 
lodging, eight at the most for his man, two crowns a 
month for his fencing, and the like amount for his 
dancing and reading ; his riding would cost him fif- 
teen crowns monthly, but he was to discontinue it 
during the heat of the year. The remainder of the 
money was to be given up to " apparel, books, trav- 
elling charges, tennis play, and other extraordinary 
expenses." ^ 

The travelling itself was done almost entirely on 
horseback ; occasionally the litter was employed,^ but 
it was unusual for men in good health to use it. Travel, 

1 Davison, Works, p. vii, and Had. Ms., 296, f. 114. 

2 Dallington, Method for Travel. 3 cf. Hoby, Ms. cit., f. 28. 



134 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

where possible, was often by water rather than by land, 
and there can be little doubt that many of the poorer 
Englishmen who visited Italy in the sixteenth century 
went there by sea; to give a single instance, one 
Nicholas Fluto, in his anxiety to see the country, em- 
barked on a ship at Dartmouth, without passage- 
money; the condition being that if he deserved his 
food and drink by his labor, he should have it free ; 
otherwise his father was to pay for it.^ Travel then 
was never altogether safe from the danger of bandits 
and pirates. Hoby alluded to " the great corsair, Drag- 
out Rais,"^ and spoke also of receiving an escort of 
Spanish soldiers to protect him from the brigands, who 
" did great damage to the inhabitants of the country." ^ 
It was this presence of danger, as well as of personal 
inconvenience in travelling, which perhaps delayed for 
so long the appreciation of natural beauties. The 
interest in scenery and landscape on the part of the 
English travellers then in Italy was certainly not very 
pronounced. They noticed the general situation of 
each city, and at times made a few remarks on the 
beauty of the locality, but their observations on nature 
fell behind their other comments ; the real attraction 
they found in Italy lay in other directions. 

The great common bond which united each traveller 
in Italy was his love of antiquity. Classical training 
played so large a part in the education of the 
Renaissance that it seemed as if a realization of the 

1 Hist. Ms. Com., Hatfield House, IV, 581. 

2 Ms. cit., f. 79 b, 3 jjjid,^ f. 82. 



THE TRAVELLER I 35 

ancient world, so to speak, could be seen in the 
Roman ruins, which were then far more numerous 
and in better preservation than at the present day. 
Whatever else the influence of Italy may have stood 
for, it was always classical. 

The general attitude toward antiquity changed, how- 
ever, with the progress of the century. Before the full 
breath of the Renaissance made itself felt in England, 
the interest taken in the ancient world had been very 
slight ; Sir Richard Guylforde had barely mentioned the 
supposed tombs of Antenor of Troy and Livy the histo- 
rian, which were pointed out to him at Padua ; similarly, 
Robert Dallington, in his description of Tuscany in 
1596, said very little about ancient ruins. The furor for 
antiquity had come, and had afterwards begun to decline 
in its relative importance, an interest in contemporary 
Italy having taken its place. It was rather about the 
middle of the sixteenth century that the greatest zeal for 
Roman remains existed. In both Hoby and Thomas, it 
is apparent at every step. Hoby's diary, for instance, 
is full of citations of classical interest ; thus, when at 
Mantua he went on a pilgrimage to Virgil's birthplace, 
in the village of Pietole, and mentioned that " upon 
the hill there, there is a little brick house which the 
inhabitants of the country call Casetta di Virgilio^ hold- 
ing opinion that was his house." ^ Later, when at 
Naples, he likewise noted " a little old house where 
they say Virgil was buried," ^ and quoted from it the 
well-known epitaph, — 

1 Ms. cit., f. 17. 2 ibid,^ f. 52 b. 



136 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc 
Parthenope, Cecini pascua rura, duces. 

The ancient world, however, impressed itself on Will- 
iam Thomas in a quite different way. The sight of 
the ruins of Rome brought out in him the Puritan and 
morahst, no less than the classical scholar. 

"When I came there and beheld the wonderful 
majesty of buildings that the only roots thereof do yet 
represent, the huge temples, the infinite great palaces, 
the immeasurable pillars, most part of one piece, fine 
marble and well wrought, the goodly arches of triumph, 
the bains, the conduits of water, the images as well of 
brass as of marble, the obelisks, and a number of 
other like things not to be found again throughout an 
whole world ; imagining withal, what majesty the city 
might be of, when all these things flourished. Then 
did it grieve me to see the only jewel mirror mistress 
and beauty of this world that never had her like nor 
(as I think) never shall, lie so desolate and dis- 
figured. . . . Nevertheless when I remembered again 
the occasions whereof these glorious things have grown, 
what numbers of wars the Romans have maintained with 
infinite blood shedding, destructions of whole coun- 
tries, ravishments of chaste women, sack, spoil, trib- 
utes, oppression of commonwealths, and a thousand 
other tyrannies without the which the Romans could 
never have achieved the perfection of so many 
wonders as mine eye did there behold. Then per- 
ceived I how just the judgment of God is, that hath 
made those antiquities to remain as a foul spoil of the 



THE TRAVELLER 1 37 

Roman pride, and for a witness to the world's end of 
their tyranny, so that I wot not, whether of these two 
is greater, either the glory of that fame that the 
Romans purchased with their wonderful conquests ; 
or their present miserable estate with the deformity of 
their antiquities." ^ 

In addition, however, to his moralizing on the deca- 
dence of the once great city, he described at length 
the Roman antiquities. In his account of them he 
wove a thread of mythical and historical anecdotes. 
He remarked of the great temples which once stood 
upon the Aventine, that nothing remained of them, not 
so much as a fragment of the aqueduct of Claudius. 
He made each of the seven hills tell its own story, 
and doing so, discussed the theories regarding the 
destruction of the great buildings of the ancient world. 
Some ascribed it to the barbarians, others to time, and 
still others to the stupid greed of the inhabitants 
themselves, who cared only for " those noble antiqui- 
ties to garnish and beautify private buildings." In 
this manner he made the tour of pagan Rome, gain- 
ing from Frontinus, Cassiodorus and Vitruvius his 
insight into the life of the ancient world. He de- 
scribed in detail the sights of the Eternal City ; the 
Thermae and the Cohseum, the triumphal arches and 
obelisks. His chief desire was to see " some of those 
ancient Romans that with their naked majesty durst 
pass through the power of their victorious enemies, 
as Livy writeth that Caius Fabius did when the French- 

1 Op. ciL, p. 22. 



138 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

men [Gauls] had gotten Rome and besieged the 
Capital." 1 

The ruins of Rome made a deep impression on the 
visitor from the northern land ; Joachim du Bellay 
had expressed their attraction in his sonnets, which 
were later translated by Spenser ; their subtle charm 
was further described by many other travellers. The 
modern idea that the whole of Italy is one vast mu- 
seum, was felt even then, though in a different sense. 
To the reader of the Roman historians it was only 
necessary to look around, to recall their pages, and 
see before his eyes the truth of their descriptions. 
Then " if he be not ravished with delight I shall take 
him, but for some stock or stone. . . . What a pleas- 
ure will it be to see the house where Pliny dwelt, the 
country wherein the famous Virgil, or the renowned 
Ovid was born." How delightful to behold so many 
ancient monuments and stately churches ! " The 
mind of man begins to revive, and lift up himself 
above itself, and to affect and meditate on excellent 
and noble things at the very sight and consideration of 
these so great and glorious monuments of antiquity ; 
neither can the remembrance of the valor, prowess 
and virtue of former men and ages, but engender 
brave and worthy thoughts in every gentle heart and 
noble blood." ^ 

The effect of the remains of antiquity upon the 
traveller was thus supposed by some to elevate the 

1 Op. cit., p. 32 b. 

2 Direction for Travailers, 



THE TRAVELLER 1 39 

mind, by others to point out moral lessons. In each 
individual it varied to a certain degree, but a com- 
mon element of interest yet existed. At times, how- 
ever, it was rather archaeological ; thus, for instance, 
Jerome Turler, in his Traveller , alluded to the delight 
in discovering relics of classical times, and mentioned 
as an example the unearthing in the Via Appia of the 
embalmed body of a woman supposed to have been 
Cicero's daughter. The interest taken in Latin epig- 
raphy and classical quotations was also great. Hoby, 
in his diary, copied a considerable number of inscrip- 
tions from the ancient ruins, likewise quoting freely 
from Latin poets ; and William Barker, on his return 
from Italy, even published a book of epitaphs he had 
collected there.^ 

IV 

The interest taken in antiquity, if it did not yield 
entirely to that found in contemporary Italy, was 
obhged, nevertheless, to share its attraction with it. 
The contemplation of an entirely new world, differing 
in almost every respect from England, aroused the 
Elizabethan imagination. The novelty of the situation 

^ Epitaphia et inscriptiones Lugubres a Gulielmo Berchero^ 
cum in Italia ani??ii causa peregrinaretiir collccta. William 
Barker, whom Hoby met at Siena in 1549 (Ms. cit., f. 25 b), 
later became one of the secretaries to the Duke of Norfolk, 
and was deeply implicated in his plot. He confessed his 
share under torture, whereupon the duke, who had denied 
everything, called him contemptuously an Itolianijied English- 
man. 



140 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

impressed itself on the visitor, and in many cases he 
described the smallest details as well as what was of 
real importance. The characteristics of the Italians 
were especially interesting to him ; to note their 
traits and customs became, so to speak, an important 
object of every traveller. 

William Thomas, in spite of his Puritan leanings, 
was a great admirer of the Italians and saw much to 
praise in their character. He himself had found the 
Italian gentlemen honorable, courteous and prudent, 
so that it seemed as if each one had received a princely 
training. They were, moreover, modest in dress, and 
neat at table. But above all they were sober of speech, 
enemies of slander, " and so tender over their own 
good name (which they call their honor) that whoso- 
ever speaketh ill of any one of them, shall die for it, if 
the party slandered may know it, and find time and 
place to do it. Whereof there is a use grown amongst 
them, that few gentlemen go abroad unarmed." ^ He 
and many others had, however, to censure the Italians 
for their sensuality and other vices. It is interesting 
to note that, as foreigners became more familiar with 
Italy, the censure increased ; thus Turler noted that 
the Italians, although grave and learned, were crafty and 
jealous.^ Languet, too, had written Sidney that while 
he could admire their keen wit, yet it was mostly on 
the surface, and they generally spoiled their attain- 
ments by undue display.^ Still later, travellers found 

1 Op. cit, p. 4. 2 Turler, op. cit., p. 40 et seq. 

3 Sidney and Languet, Correspondence, p. 12. 



THE TRAVELLER I4I 

the Italians hypocritical, sensual and, worst of all, jeal- 
ous to an absurd degree. They were called " invei- 
gling underminers and deep dissemblers who when 
they have pried into your nature and are privy to 
your secrets will straight change their copy and show 
themselves in their colors."^ The gravity and dignity 
of Italians were, however, admired by all," even in after 
years, when the common idea of their treachery and 
sensuaHty had passed into a byword. 

Regarding the division of classes in Italy, an observer 
like Thomas was greatly impressed by the fact that 
the leading merchants were for the most part gentle- 
men. If there are three or four brothers, he wrote, 
one or two of them go into a trade ; ^ and in case 
they do not divide their father's patrimony, then the 
merchants work as well for their brothers' benefit as 
for their own. And inasmuch as their reputation 
does not suffer by reason of their trade, it follows that 
there are more wealthy men in Italy than in any other 
country, and there was nothing remarkable to find, in a 
single city, twenty people worth one hundred thou- 
sand crowns or more. Thomas admired the Italian 
artificers " as being the finest and most inventive work- 
men of all others ; " although they often acquired great 
wealth, they rarely rose in the social scale. The 
peasants, on the other hand, he found were every- 

^ Direction for Travailers. 

2 Even Dallington in his Method for Travel alludes to it; cf. 
Sandys, Spectihnn Europce, etc. 

3 Op. cit., p. 5. 



142 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

where oppressed, often not having enough to buy 
bread with. All wealthy people and gentlemen lived 
in the towns, renting their farms and pastures ; but 
they had country houses, where they went in the 
heat of the summer, and there " under the fresh 
arbors, hedges, and boughs, amongst the delicate 
fruits, they triumph in as much pleasure as may be 
imagined . . . with some instrument of music and 
such other things as serve for his recreation. And if 
ever the tenant have good day, then licketh he his lips 
of his master's leavings." ^ 

This contrast between the luxury and poverty of 
Italy greatly impressed Englishmen still unused to 
such extremes. Wealth in Italy was so unevenly 
divided that, while the rich people were the richest 
anywhere, the poor were likewise the poorest.^ Dalling- 
ton remarked, when at Prato, that one-quarter of the 
population were bare-legged, so " that we know all is 
not gold in Italy, though many travellers, gazing only 
on the beauty of their cities, and the painted surface 
of their houses, think it the only Paradise of Europe. 
But if they would come with me — 

Sordida rura 
Atque humiles intrare casas, et visere gentem — 

they would surely grant that poverty and famine had not 
a greater kingdom." ^ On the other hand, fifty years 
earher, Thomas was struck by the luxury of the Milan- 

^ Op. cit, p. 6. 2 Sandys, op. cit. 

^ Dallington, Ttiscaiiy, p. i6. 



THE TRAVELLER I 43 

ese ; " there is almost no craftsman's wife in Milan, 
that hath not her gown of silk and her chain of gold ; " ^ 
Hoby was similarly impressed by the magnificence he 
saw around him in the Italian cities. 

The characteristic traits of the inhabitants of the dif- 
ferent cities of Italy were likewise noticed, and also the 
uniformity of speech on the part of the better classes 
who " are brought up in the courtesan [language] 
only ; " although between Florentines and Vene- 
tians there is as great a difference " as with us be- 
tween a Londoner and a Yorkshireman." ^ Venice in 
particular aroused the admiration of all, and even 
Languet excepted its citizens from his almost univer- 
sal condemnation of the country. What observers 
particularly admired was that "unweaponed men in 
gowns should with such happiness of success give 
direction and law to many mighty and warlike armies 
both by sea and land, and that a single city unwalled 
and alone should command and overtop mighty king- 
doms . . . sued unto for entertainment by the greatest 
princes and peers of Italy ; amidst which infinite afflu- 
ence of glory, and unmeasurable mightiness of power, 
of which there are in sovereignty partakers above three 
thousand gentlemen, yet is there not one among them 
to be found that doth aspire to any greater appellation 
of honor, or higher title of dignity than to be called 
' A gentleman of Venice.' " ^ These lines were written 
at a time when all else in Italy was in decay ; but a 
half century before, when the contrast was not so sharp, 

1 Op. cit, p. 188. 2 jiijd., p. 3. 8 Lewkenor, Vetiice, preface. 



144 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

Thomas remarked that if the Venetians had been men 
as were the Romans, and given as much to deeds on 
land as on water, " they might many years ago have 
subdued the world." As it was, their power had 
declined ever since the taking of Constantinople, and 
" they rather practise with money to buy and sell 
countries peace and war than to exercise deeds of 
arms ; . . . most Venetians are at these days become 
better merchants than men of war." ^ 

Thomas, in his account of the private life of the 
Venetians, in spite of their alleged faults of sensuaUty, 
avarice and pride, observed many good qualities as 
well. He had met both old and young men who were 
all they ought to be. He tried to give both sides of 
their character, and allowed an imaginary Venetian to 
defend himself against his accusers ; to justify his pride, 
because he was " a prince, and no subject," his fru- 
gality, since the state allowed no pomp or display, and 
his lending money to the commonwealth because it 
was of advantage to both parties.^ One other custom 
he noticed was the excessive liberty given to children. 
" One is no sooner out of the shell but he is hail fellow 
with father and friend."^ Altogether, in spite of the 
faults alleged against them, one cannot but be im- 
pressed by the greater breadth of view of the Vene- 
tians over the other Italians of the late sixteenth 
century. The English traveller could not, however, 
foresee that a far greater colonial empire than the 

1 Op. cit., p. 75. 2 Ibid., p. 84 et seq. 

3 Ibid., p. 84. 



THE TRAVELLER 1 45 

one slipping from the Venetians' grasp would one day 
be the heritage of his own descendants, and that its 
possession would bring with it many of the qualities and 
faults he had noted as especially belonging to Venice. 

The ordinary impression made by the Florentines was 
one of talkativeness and a great desire to appear elo- 
quent. Thomas observed that " he is not reputed 
a man among them that cannot play the orator in his 
tale, as well in gesture as in word." ^ Dallington, fifty 
years later, wrote that although he had heard much of 
the great wit of the Florentines he was unable to find it 
himself, whatever Machiavelli might say about it ; the 
Florentine was good enough for conversation on frivo- 
lous subjects, but for nothing deeper. And this, though 
they " do all things alia mostra and speak always alia 
grande, witness their great houses, and small furniture 
of the one, their great words and small matter."^ 
Everything was done for show, — even their duels, 
where each party was well armed under his garments. 
He himself had seen " two gallants in Pisa fight thus 
completely provided where after a very furious en- 
counter, and a most merciless shredding and slashing 
of their apparel, with a most desperate resolution to 
cut one another out of his clothes, they were (to the 
saving of many a stitch) parted and by mediation with 
much ado made friends."^ 

To follow the English traveller through the cities of 
Italy would be a study in itself. Each place excited 

1 Op. cit., p. 139. 2 Dallington, Tuscany, p. 61. 

« Ibid., p. 65. 



146 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

some comment on his part. Thus at Siena, Hoby no- 
ticed the hospitality of every one/ while at Naples, 
Thomas remarked the pohteness of the people, but 
qualified it by saying that they could not be trusted. 
In Genoa he was especially struck by the amorous 
qualities of its inhabitants, who could indeed teach 
Ovid "a dozen points ... so that in mine opinion 
the supreme court of love is nowhere to be found out 
of Genoa." 2 

Although the EngHsh traveller in Italy no longer 
went there purely to study, he was still interested in 
culture ; while at Padua, for instance, Hoby alluded 
to the great professors of classics, and mentioned later 
that he passed the birthplace of " the famous clerk in 
letters of humanity, Lazarus Bonamicus, stipended 
reader in the schools of Padua." ^ The learning of 
the Italian women was also noticed,^ especially that 
of the Sienese who " wrote excellently well both in 
prose and verse." ^ What made a deep impression, how- 
ever, was the Florentine Academy, of which Thomas 
wrote probably the first English account, all the more 
interesting in view of the Areopagus of Sidney, and 
of Bolton's idea of a similar institution which was 
never to take root in England. The Academy seemed 
to Thomas one of the most interesting of all the sights 
he had seen. He described how the learned Floren- 
tines met there, the duke being of their number. The 

1 Ms. cit., f. 24 b. •* Turler, op. cit., p. 43. 

2 Thomas, op. at., p. 162. ^ Hoby, Ms. cit., f. 24 b. 
8 Ms. cit., f. 93. 



THE TRAVELLER 1 47 

one to whom the task had been assigned beforehand 
would ascend the tribune and dehver an oration, last- 
ing an hour, on any subject of his choice, the orator of 
the occasion being seated higher than the duke himself. 
Thomas confessed to never having heard "reader in 
school nor preacher in pulpit handle themselves 
better." ^ Later on, Dallington presented the other 
side of the picture. In former days, he wrote, the 
Florentines may well have had wit, but Hke spend- 
thrifts they had run through the fortune that was left 
them ; if Machiavelli were still ahve and could see 
those wont to rule a state pay toll for a few lettuce 
brought from their villa, " he would unsay that which 
he had formerly said, and swear they had no wit." 

V 

Architecture was then the only art really noticed by 
English travellers, perhaps because of its learned side. 
Thomas devoted considerable attention to it, and, 
following Vitruvius, he explained at some length the 
different classic orders and styles, probably for the first 
time in Enghsh. The ruins of antiquity were likewise 
often regarded from the point of view of their own 
intrinsic beauty. Frequently, too, the churches im- 
pressed the traveller. St. Peter's was briefly described 
by Thomas, who admired the grandeur of its dimen- 
sions, but said that most people were in doubt as to 
whether it would ever be finished.^ 

The great palaces of the Renaissance were also 

1 Op. cit., p. 139. 2 /^/^.^ p. 40. 



148 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

objects of the traveller's admiration. Thomas re- 
marked of Venice that no place in all Europe was able 
to compare with it in number of sumptuous houses, 
and that there were over two hundred palaces there, 
all able to lodge any king.^ In Rome, too, he thought 
the Palazzo Farnese one of the grandest buildings in 
the world, and admired beyond measure the Belve- 
dere, with the fountains and orange trees around it, 
which made it look like another paradise. 

The aesthetic appreciation of the Englishman in 
the sixteenth century may be judged from the fact 
that the only statues observed by him were antiques. 
Classical education had not yet deigned to notice con- 
temporary sculpture ; Hoby almost alone admired a 
marble fountain representing the story of Actaeon by 
Giovan Angelo [Montorsoli] at Messina, " which to my 
eyes is one of the fairest works of marble that ever I 
saw." ^ But he passed the bronze gates of the Bap- 
tistery in Florence without a remark of any kind. On 
the other hand, such works as the marble horses on 
the Monte Cavallo in Rome, supposed to have been by 
Phidias and Praxiteles, were mentioned by nearly every 
traveller. The statues of the Belvedere were also de- 
scribed by Thomas, who spoke of " the images of fine 
marble, of Romulus and Remus playing with a wolf's 
teats, of Apollo with his bow and arrows, of Laocoon 
with his two children wrapped about with serpents, of 
Venus beholding httle Cupido, of the sorrowful Cleo- 
patra [Ariadne] lying by the river side, and divers 

1 Turler, op. cit., p. 74. ^ ]y[s. cit., f. 69 b. 




S^/r:^ ^<r/^i>v,^ .c>^-^^e^^ 



l:^:4r^yW(}yi^ ^C^ ■ ■''^'''4 






THE TRAVELLER 1 49 

Others too long to rehearse."^ He noticed, also, the 
numerous headless statues he saw everywhere, which 
he ascribed to the zeal of collectors who cut off the 
heads to transport them home. Even the most culti- 
vated Englishmen of the time were unable to appreciate 
the greatest of the Italian arts. At a time when painting 
had barely passed its zenith, Hoby and Thomas passed 
through Italy without even noticing its existence, and 
quite insensible to its charms. A little later, Sidney al- 
luded, in a letter to his brother, to the Italian superiority 
in painting ; and he himself, it will be remembered, un- 
decided at first whether to have his portrait painted by 
Tintoretto or Veronese, finally chose the latter. It was 
not, however, until toward the very end of the century 
that any appreciation of the Italian fine arts could be 
found in England. Lomazzo's treatise was then first 
translated, and Constable alluded in a sonnet to Michel- 
angelo "the archpainter," and to Raphael's great skill.^ 
Dallington likewise, who had previously praised 
Michelangelo as an " excellent painter," wrote that 
Italy generally excelled in that art as well as in poetry ; 
" and no marvel, when all their time is spent in amours, 
and all their churches decked with colors." " 

One of the great causes which led Englishmen to 
travel in Italy was the supposed preparation it gave 
for court life. To see as much as possible of this was 
the object of most travellers. What particularly im- 
pressed them, however, was the luxury of the great 

1 Op. cit., p. 40. 2 Sonnet to Mr. Hilliard. 

3 Dallington, Tuscany^ p. 62. 



150 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

houses, while the Italian festivities and pageants were 
noticed by all. The former, especially, greatly struck 
Hoby, who wrote that when he stopped with the 
Marquis of Capistrano at Amalfi, he slept in " a chamber 
hanged with cloth of gold and velvet," while on the 
bed was silver work, and even the bolsters were of 
velvet.^ Thomas had been similarly impressed with 
the luxury in other parts of Italy. The pageants and 
great spectacles were likewise sights to be seen by 
travellers. Perhaps the earliest existing record of 
these by any Englishman in Italy, was a letter written 
in 1458 by John Free, while a student at Ferrara, to 
his protector, WiUiam Grey, describing the celebrations, 
lasting four days, intended to celebrate the elevation of 
^neas Sylvius to the papacy. A Virgihan song com- 
posed by the prince himself was sung and the feitx de 
joie were lit in the evening. Youths and maidens 
sang through the whole night, and the rejoicings turned 
almost into frenzy as the populace rushed madly from 
one end of the town to the other to the ringing 
sound of trumpets. On the next day every one turned 
out to see the horse races and athletic games. Free 
described all this with the enthusiasm of the young 
student, who saw before him the realization of a 
world he had dreamed of.^ 

Other spectacles of similar nature were mentioned 
by later travellers : the ceremony of the Bucentaur, 
when the Doge went out to wed the Adriatic, was 
written of both by Torkington and Hoby. One last 

1 Ms. cit., f. 82 b, 2 Ms. Bod., 587, f. 161. 



THE TRAVELLER 151 

description may be mentioned. The procession of 
Pope Paul the Third, on Christmas day, 1547, was nar- 
rated at length by William Thomas, who allowed all his 
Puritanism to appear in the account he gave. " O 
what a world it is to see the pride and abomination 
that the churchmen there maintain. What is a king? 
What is an emperor in his majesty? Anything like to 
the Roman bishop ? No, surely, nor would I not wish 
them so to be." He described the salvo of cannon 
which greeted the cardinals as they crossed St. Angelo's 
bridge, and the guard of Switzers, all in white harness, 
marching out to meet them. " There was no cardinal 
that came without a great train of gentlemen and 
prelates, well horsed and appointed ; some had forty, 
some fifty, and some sixty or mo[re]. And next, before 
every of them, rode two henchmen, the one carrying 
a cushion and a rich cloth and the other a pillar of 
silver, and the cardinals themselves appareled in robes 
of crimson chamlet, with red hats on their heads, rode 
on mules." 

When they were all within the palace, the " bishop " 
(for Thomas never wrote of him as Pope) appeared 
with his " triple-crowned mitre and shoes of crimson 
velvet set with precious stones and all his other pon- 
tifical apparel." Then the prelates and officers passed 
before him " which are such a number as were able to 
make the muster of a battail, if they were well-ordered 
in the field. Dataries, Treasurers, Clerks of the Cham- 
ber, Penitentiaries, Prebendaries, Notaries, Protono- 
taries, and a thousand more, each order of them in 



152 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

his diverse devise of parliamentary robes, all in scar- 
let, and for the most part finely furred. Then came 
the double cross, the sword and the imperial hat, and 
after that the cardinals by two and two, and between 
every two a great rout of gentlemen. Then came the 
ambassadors, and next them the bishop himself bless- 
ing all the way, and carried in his chaise by eight men 
clothed in scarlet j and on either side of him went his 
guard making room and crying, Abasso abasso, 
for they that will not kneel shall be made kneel by 
force." And the Pope, having been carried into a 
chapel behind the altar, on " a throne of wonderful 
majesty was set up as a god." ^ 

Turning from the personal reminiscences of the 
traveller to the interest he took in matters which might 
later be of use to him in public life, besides the gen- 
eral descriptions of the country, there was also a con- 
siderable amount of historical and similar information. 
The first, in the case of Thomas, was usually compiled 
from the best authorities available, as he wrote in ex- 
planation of his own method : " Conferring the dis- 
course of divers authors together, touching the Floren- 
tine histories and finding the effects of them all gathered 
in one by Nicholas Machiavegli, a notable learned 
man, and secretary of late days to the commonwealth 
there, I determined to take him for mine only author in 
that behalf." ^ In like manner, other historical accounts 
were given by him of the cities of Italy, for the purpose 
of teaching the Enghsh how from 'kittle beginnings 

1 Op. cit., p. 37 et seq. ^ Ibid.^ p. 140. 



THE TRAVELLER 1 53 

many great estates have arisen, and how they that have 
the power to rule, by using their authorities well and 
prudently, have merited immortal fame of honor and 
prize." ^ It was, however, not so much the historical 
portions which were of interest as those treating of the 
government, the laws and regulations of each state. 
In these were put in practice, so to speak, the advice 
given in the theories of travel. The methods of raising 
the revenue and the powers and duties of each office 
were all described. Thus, in Venice it was said of the 
Doge that " though in appearance he seemeth of great 
estate, yet in very deed his power is but small. . . . 
some of the Venetians themselves call him an honor- 
able slave." - The privileges and duties of every office 
were discussed in this way. The great council was 
compared to the English Parliament, since matters 
of importance were submitted to it and its judgment 
was final on all subjects. In a similar manner the other 
institutions of the state were considered. The liberty 
enjoyed by strangers was greatly admired in Venice. 
" All men have so much liberty that they can say what 
they like about the Venetians so long as they attempt 
nothing." No man marks another's doings or med- 
dles with his affairs. " If thou be a papist, then shalt 
thou want no kind of superstition to feed upon. If 
thou be a gospeller, no man shall ask why thou comest 
not to church. If thou be a Jew or a Turk, or believ- 
est in the devil (so thou spread not thy opinions 
abroad) thou art free from all controlment . . . and 
1 Op, cit., p. I. 2 jiji^^^ p. 77, 



154 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

generally of all other things, so thou offend no man 
privately no man shall offend thee ; which undoubt- 
edly is one principal cause that draweth so many 
strangers thither." ^ In a similar spirit, the institu- 
tions of the other states were discussed. But they 
offered few lessons to the English student of govern- 
ment. Italy had without a doubt degenerated from its 
former condition. Sidney's and Languet's letters are 
full of expressions of disgust at the servility found there. 
Thomas long before had noted that the Romans, in 
spite of the recollections of their former liberty, were 
held in such subjection by the Pope that they dared 
not stir.^ Last of all, DalHngton spoke of the discon- 
tent of the Tuscans, who found the yoke lie heavy on 
their backs, and ended his book with the two-edged 
saying, Qui sub Medicis vivit, misei-e vivit. 

1 Op. ciL, p. 85. ^ Ibid., p. 37. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE ITALIAN DANGER | 

I 

A NEW era dawned in England with Elizabeth's 
accession to the throne. The long preparation of pre- 
vious years was to bear its fruit during her reign, and 
amid the dangers which then threatened the nation, a 
generous enthusiasm swept over England, and made 
of those years an heroic period in its history. One of 
the main reasons, perhaps, of the greatness of the 
Elizabethan Age, lay in the growth of national con- 
sciousness. Kindred feelings and sentiments were in- 
fused into every class, while a new social structure was 
replacing the old distinctions of mediaeval feudalism. 
The period was also characterized by the wide diifusion 
of Italian culture, and its spread from the powerful but 
necessarily narrow court circle to the educated middle 
classes. With the progress of the age, travel abroad, 
which meant especially Italy, became even more com- 
mon, until it was regarded as a necessary complement 
to the education of a gentleman ; while in England, 
during this time, the Italian language was taught and 
Italian fashions extensively copied. A reaction, how- 
ever, set in. The growth of Puritanism encouraged 

155 



156 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

novelists to attack the " Circean Charms " of Italy and 
point out their pitfalls and perils. The "Itahanate 

I Englishman/' as he was then known, became alike an 

t object of satire and reproach. 

The reaction against Italy was not altogether unex- 

\ pected. There had always existed in England a dis- 
like for anything foreign, noticed by all the early 
travellers. Italians had questioned WiUiam Thomas 
regarding the English incivility to strangers, and he re- 
plied that it was then a thing of the past,^ yet Petruccio 
Ubaldini, writing later, thought it inadvisable for stran- 
gers to travel in England without a royal pass, as the 
inhabitants would find out how their own compatriots 
had been treated in the stranger's country, and if 
badly, the traveller would not be very secure.^ Florio 
likewise complained that the masses were very dis- 
courteous toward strangers.^ This hatred of everything 
foreign, existing in the minds of all untravelled Eng- 
lishmen and running counter to the excessive imita- 
tion of Italian fashions, stirred up a feeling which 
found its outlet in the invectives launched against 
Italy and the " Italianate Englishman." The cry was 
joined in by others who, having been in Italy them- 
selves, had been shocked by its open wickedness. 
Satirists, eager for new sensations, scholars and states- 
men, pamphleteers and moralists all joined hands in 
condemning what had been the fashion of the age. 
Florio in vain attempted feebly to defend the Italians, 

^ Pilgrim, p. 6. ^ Ms. cit., f. 230 <?/ seg. 

3 First Fruites, ch. 13. 



THE ITALIAN DANGER 1 5/ 

urging that great virtues flourished in Italy side by 
side with vice.^ His was almost the only note raised 
in defence ; all else was invective and condemnation. 
It must be said that there was justification for much 
of the anti-Italian feehng which then sprang up. Even 
Erasmus in his day had complained that many of the 
scholars who went to Italy in search of learning re- 
turned with a knowledge of evil practices they had 
acquired there." As travel became more and more of 
an amusement, and as its educational value, while per- 
haps not entirely lost sight of, was yet shghted, it was 
pleasure alone which many travellers sought for 
abroad, where remoteness from criticism gave license 
to their desires. Temptations lay before them in Italy, 
which, even if found in England, were there, at least, 
kept within strict limits. The richness of Italian life 
had not departed in a day, and long after the down- 
fall of its liberties in the very midst of political servi- 
tude faint glimmers of former splendor remained in 
its celebrations and festivals. Too often the young 
Englishman, travelling there for the experience which 
was to fit him for the service of his prince and state, 
saw little beyond vice of every kind. In many cases 
he was himself fresh from the university, for the first 
time, perhaps, his own master, with abundant money 
at his command ; and around him he found those 
willing to pander to him in all ways, and in case his 
conscience revolted, to ease his qualms with the sophis- 
try of v/hich they were masters. It was not so much 

1 Second Fruites, Introd. ^ Epist., CCCLXIII. 



158 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

that vice was more widely spread in Italy than be- 
fore, but rather that the counterbalancing virtues had 
departed, and it alone remained. Liberty, crushed 
in Italy, left sensuality and treachery. Former virtues 
might still remain, but they were beneath the surface. 
The ordinary English traveller in Italian cities saw 
only their worst side, often caring for no other. As 
Ascham expressed it, he witnessed greater freedom to 
sin in his nine days' stay in Venice than he had ever 
heard of in nine years in London. 

There can be no doubt that Italy had degenerated 
from its former condition. The country which had 
been the foster-mother of all Europe was at length 
exhausted. Even among Italians this decay was no- 
ticeable. They deplored the past greatness of their 
land; superfluous titles had alone increased; the 
day for deeds had gone by.^ Italy, however, still 
traded on its past fame, when first in Europe it had 
discovered the ancient world. But its fate had been 
sealed from the day when Rome was sacked and 
pillaged, and the last stand for liberty had been made 
on the walls of Florence. Venice might still continue 
in apparent magnificence to be queen of the Adriatic, 
but even her hfe-blood had been sapped. The living 
glory of Italy was soon to leave it. In the influence 
of its teachings beyond the Alps, rather than in its own 
deeds, its greatness was mainly to continue. 

Foreign observers likewise commented on the degen- 
eracy of Italy ; some said that the long years of servi- 

1 Delia Casa, Galateo, p. 42. 



THE ITALIAN DANGER 1 59 

tude had subdued the minds of ItaUans, who were 
ready to endure all kinds of indignities.^ Edwin 
Sandys thought their national faults to be sensuality, 
malice and deceit. In spite of his having met good 
men in Italy, he wrote, nevertheless, that " the whole 
country is strongly overflown with wickedness." - 
There can be little cause for surprise that moralists, 
when they saw the best youth of England returning 
from Italian travel, aping ridiculous customs and fash- 
ions and outwardly advocating immoraHty and atheism, 
should have preached against the foreign influence. 
" Our countrymen usually bring three things with 
them out of Italy, a naughty conscience, an empty 
purse, and a weak stomach."^ The movement was 
fostered by the growth of Puritanism, which looked 
with suspicion on anything hailing from a Catholic 
nation. At a time when the conflict arising from 
the Reformation was still in its most deadly phase, 
Italy, which to many Englishmen seemed the enemies' 
country, was to be rigidly avoided in spite of its attrac- 
tions. News of Englishmen imprisoned by the Inquisi- 
tion was extensively circulated to frighten others away ; 
the fanatic Richard Atkins, who attempted to convert 
the Pope, was made into a martyr and a hero. Trav- 
ellers were especially warned against Jesuits, who would 
make of men "bad Christians and worse subjects."^ 
On account of these dangers, Rome was not considered 
a safe place to visit. Sidney, at Languet's request, 

1 Languet, EpisL, XXXIII. 3 Turler, op. cit. 

^ Speculum Europa. * Dallington, Method of Travel. 



l60 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

refrained from going there, much as he would have 
hked to have done so. Others similarly recommended 
their readers to keep away from Rome, which was per- 
ilous both to conscience and conduct.^ The whole of 
Italy was considered scarcely less dangerous. " I am 
convinced that this baneful Italy would so contaminate 
the very Turks, would so ensnare them with all its vile 
allurements, that they would soon fall down of them- 
selves from their high place," Sidney wrote in a letter 
from Venice.^ For similar reasons Lord Burleigh, in 
giving advice to his son Robert Cecil, urged him never 
to allow his sons to cross the Alps " for they shall learn 
nothing there but pride, blasphemy and atheism." ^ 

Those supposedly best qualified to judge, who had 
written of travels in foreign countries, warned their 
compatriots of the physical as well as moral perils they 
would have to encounter. " O Italy academy of man- 
slaughter, the sporting place of murder, the apothecary 
shop of all nations ! How many kinds of weapons has 
thou invented for malice ! " * George Gascoigne, in his 
lines to a friend about to travel in Italy, advised 
him to beware of poison when invited to dinners, 
never to drink before another had tasted the beverage, 
to be on the lookout for poisoned soap, and take 
care lest the tailor stuff his doublet with what might 
bring on a deadly sweat.^ The Italian art of poisoning 

1 Marlianus, preface. Dallington, Method for Travel. 

2 Letters, p. 48. ^ Cited in Zouch, Life of Sidney, p. 373. 
* Nash, Piers Penniless, p. 2>^. 

^ Hundred Sundry Flowers. 



THE ITALIAN DANGER l6l 

impressed itself especially on the Elizabethan imagina- 
tion and furnished endless material to the dramatists. 

Dangers of different kinds were thus alleged against 
the insidious influences of Italy. Travellers thence 
''bring home nothing but mere atheism, infidehty, 
vicious conversation," and returned to England far 
worse than they came.^ Just as the young Athenian 
who, going to Corinth to hear the eloquence of Demos- 
thenes, was seduced by the beauty of Lais, so the young 
Englishman who travelled to learn a strange language 
was "in short time transformed into so monstrous a 
shape, that he is fain to alter his mansion with his 
manners." ^ The zealous Protestant, after having been 
in Italy, would proclaim that faith and truth were to be 
kept only where there was no loss, and forgiveness 
should not be shown until full revenge had been 
exacted. Another would say on his return, that he 
was a fool who took account of any religion, but an 
even greater fool if he lost any of his wealth thereby ; 
and if he were willing to give up his life for it, he must 
be stark mad. Still a third said he cared not for God, 
so long as he had the prince and the country's laws 
on his side.^ It was said of the " Itahanate English- 
man " that he held in greater reverence the Triui7iphs 
of Petrarch than the book of Genesis, and preferred a 
tale of Boccaccio to a story in the Bible. The mys- 
teries of religion he considered to be fables, and made 

1 Harrison, England, p. 129 et seq. 

2 F. Meres, Palladis Tamia, p. 237. 
* Harrison, loc. cit. 

M 



1 62 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

" Christ and his Gospels only serve civil policy." If 
it suited his purpose, he would openly promote rehgion, 
and again scoff at it in private. He cared neither for 
scripture nor church, and when in the company of 
those who thought like him, he would mock the Pope 
and rail at Luther, explaining all the mysteries of 
rehgion with a half- verse of Horace, Credat Judceus 
Apella. An epicure in living, an atheist in doctrine, the 
only heaven he desired was that of his own pleasure.^ 
In Italy itself the Inglese Italianato e tm Diavolo 
Incarnato passed as a byword. 

The Italianate Englishman was to be described, 
even more plainly, as one who, after living and travel- 
ling in Italy, brought back with him to England " the 
religion, the learning, the policy, the experience, the 
manners of Italy. . . . These be the enchantments 
of Circe brought out of Italia to mar men's manners 
in England, and which ' Our Italians ' returned with." ^ 
A young man thus brought up, said Ascham, contemn- 
ing all rehgion and honest living, would come back to 
England but ill taught to be either an honest man or 
a good subject of his prince or his God. 

It was scarcely to be wondered at, that educators 
and moralists looked with alarm on the effects of 
Italian travel on Englishmen. Roger Ascham, meet- 
ing Sir Richard Sackville in the queen's privy chamber 
at Windsor, had been asked his opinion regarding 
the desire of so many Englishmen to travel abroad, 
and especially to spend a long time in Italy. In 

1 Ascham, Scholeniaster, p. 71 et seq. ^ Ibid. 



THE ITALIAN DANGER 1 63 

his reply he stated that he did not underrate the 
value of experiences acquired in foreign countries, 
nor disparage the Italian language which, after Latin 
and Greek, he loved above all other foreign tongues, 
nor did he bear personal maUce toward Italy. For- 
merly it had been of the greatest benefit to the 
world at large, and had brought forth the worthiest 
men in all activities of public life. Times, however, 
had changed, and between the new and the old there 
was as great difference as between black and white. 
Virtue had once made Italy mistress of the world. 
Vice now compelled her to be a slave to all other 
nations, and made its inhabitants willing to bear the 
stranger's yoke. It was no longer the place where a 
man could learn either wisdom or proper conduct.^ 
On similar grounds Harrison wrote that the usual 
sending of " noblemen's and mean gentlemen's sons 
into Italy " was to the detriment of England.- " Eng- 
land is indeed injured by the taste of the upper classes 
for foreign things alone," wrote Richard Mulcaster.^ 
Everything learned in travel, he argued, could as 
readily be acquired at home, and with it, moreover, a 
love for one's native soil. Each country ought to de- 
velop its own individuality ; foreign customs would not 
fit, and foreign ideas only distorted one's own. The 
things observed in travel were not in themselves 
valuable. It was rather the language and learning, 
which could as readily be studied at home, as in the 

1 Ascham, op. ciL, p. 72. 2 Harrison, he. cit. 

'* Positions, p. 210. 



1 64 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

case of Queen Elizabeth, who had gathered in England 
the best fruits of the wisdom of other nations. The 
greatest danger Englishmen had to fear was their too 
great liking for what was foreign. The true lesson of 
patriotism was to be studied in one's native land. " I 
love Rome, but London better. I favor Italy, but 
England more. I honor the Latin, but I worship the 

Enghsh." 1 

II 

The new type of Italianate Englishman who re- 
turned home, bringing with him foreign affectations 
and vices, with a smattering of learning and a pretence 
of worldly wisdom doubly irritating to sober English- 
men, was no rare exception. Marlowe represented 
him in Piers Gaveston, the royal favorite. Shake- 
speare portrayed him somewhat differently m Jacques'^ 
who, after a career of hbertinage, returned from his 
travels abroad disappointed with Hfe and with every- 
thing English. To him Rosalind says: "Farewell, 
Monsieur Traveller ; look you lisp and wear strange 
suits ; disable all the benefits of your own country ; 
be out of love with your nativity and almost chide 
God for making you that countenance you are, or 
I will scarce think you have swam in a gondola." 
In Jack Wilton, Nash wrote that Italy made the young 
man kiss his hand like an ape, and cringe his neck. 
" From thence he brings the art of atheism, the art 
of epicurising, the art of poisoning, lasciviousness," and 

1 Elementary, p. 254 et seq. 

2 As You Like It, IV, i, 32. 



THE ITALIAN DANGER 1 65 

unnatural vices. The only benefit he acquired was 
that it made him a good courtier, an excellent 
"carpet knight." The young English " Itahanate 
Signior," as Gabriel Harvey called him, in a letter 
to Spenser, would praise the Italian poets above all 
others, and denounce everything English, whether in 
apparel, language or behavior. Everything not out- 
landish, or which savored in any way of England, was 
thought vulgar and base. "O Italish England," he 
wrote, " what has become of your ancient fortitude 
and might ; since Tuscanism has come in, Vanity is 
above all else, and next comes villainy; there is no 
one who is not a minion ; grand words cover feeble 
deeds." ^ He drew a picture of the Italianate Eng- 
lishman, which, according to Nash, was meant to be a 
satire on the Earl of Oxford, who, but lately returned 
from his Italian travels, had introduced from that coun- 
try various articles of dress and toilet previously un- 
known in England : — 

Indeed most frivolous : not a look but Italish always. 

His cringing side neck, eyes gleaming, physiognomy smirking. 

With forefinger kiss, and brave embrace to the footward. 

******* 
A little apish hat, crushed fast to the pate like an oyster; 
French cambric ruffs, deep with a witness starched to the purpose. 
Every one a per se a; his terms and braveries in print. 
Delicate in speech, quaint in array, conceited in all points. 

******* 
In courtly guises, a passing singular odd man. 
This nay more than this doth practice of Italy m one year. 2 

1 Letter-Book, p. 65. 2 /^^-^^ p ^^^ 



1 66 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

There was much in the behavior of Englishmen fresh 
from Itahan travels, in their depreciation of their 
own country and excessive admiration for everything 
foreign, to irritate sensible men. George Pettie said 
that he had himself heard them telling foreigners that 
England was barbarous, that English manners were 
rude, and EngHsh people uncivil; and if strangers 
should think this true, he said it was owing to Eng- 
lish travellers abroad, who ran down their own country, 
and contemned one another, no less than they " apishly 
imitate every outlandish ass, in their gestures, behavior, 
and apparel."^ 

This affectation of everything Itahan, noticed by 
the Italians themselves,^ offered the dramatists and 
poets, but chiefly the pamphleteers, fine opportunities 
for satires and jests. Shakespeare makes the Duke 
of York say : — 

The open ear of youth doth always listen ; 
Report of fashions in proud Italy, 
Whose manners still our tardy apish nation 
Limps after in base imitation.^ 

Strangely enough the literary men, who were them- 
selves most influenced by Italy, were the loudest in 
their denunciations. John Marston, himself partly 
Italian, spoke of the youth who abused their time in 

1 Guazzo, preface. 

2 " Costumi e maniere Italiane estimate et imitate da loro 
[Inglesi] piu che quelli di altre nationi." — Cal. St. Pap.^ Ven., 
VI, 1080-8 1. Vide also Cardan's Diary, etc. 

3 Richard 11, II, i, 20 et seq. 



THE ITALIAN DANGER 1 67 

travel and came home " in clothes Italianate," ^ 
returning with all kinds of half- devised villanies, of 
which the very beasts of the field would blush. Vice 
and the art of poisoning was what they brought 
back with them. Gabriel Harvey had accused Nash 
of having travelled in Italy " to fetch him twopenny 
worth of Tuscanism," quite renouncing his ordinary 
Enghsh intonation and gestures to adopt the Italian 
manner. Nash, however, in spite of being known as 
the " Enghsh Aretine," was full of condemnation for the 
" filthy Itahanate," and described how he himself had 
hastened "out of the Sodom of Italy," where only 
lasciviousness could be learned.^ And Robert Greene 
confessed regretfully that on his Italian travels he 
" saw and practised such villany as it is abominable 
to declare." ^ 

The dramatists and pamphleteers, however, could 
not equal the ardor of the Puritans who thundered 
invectives in denouncing the Italian danger. " We 
have robbed Italy of wantonness," wrote Stephen 
Gosson ; " compare London to Rome, and England 
to Italy, you shall find the theatres of the one and the 
abuses of the other, to be rife among us." * He 
complained especially of the " many wanton books 
which, being translated into English, have poisoned 
the old manners of our country with foreign 

1 Scourge of Villainy, Bk. Ill, Sat. IX, 1. 90; Vide Bk. I, 
Sat. II. 

2 Nash, III, 243; V, 146, e\.c., passim. 

* The Repentance. * School of Abuse, p. 34. 



1 68 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

delights."^ Others likewise found a great source 
of danger in the English translations of Italian 
books. It was thought a pity that they were 
allowed to be printed. Ten sermons at St. Paul's 
did not so much good as a single one of these 
books did harm in enticing men to wickedness, 
corrupting honest living, and undermining religion.^ 
Although Ascham condemned the chivalric romance 
of former years, where the noblest knights were 
those who killed most men and committed the 
foulest adulteries, he could not but feel that ten 
Morte (f Arthurs did not do one-tenth as much 
harm as the English translation of Italian books, 
" sold in every shop in London, commended by 
honest titles, the sooner to corrupt honest manners ; 
dedicated over boldly to virtuous and honest person- 
ages, the easier to beguile simple and innocent wits." 
They taught such things and such wickedness " as 
the simple head of an Englishman was unable to 
invent, nor had, indeed, ever before been heard of in 
England." « 

A different side of the Italian danger was brought 
out by the numerous Italian adventurers of every 
description, who then overran all Europe, and were 
regarded as the corrupters of nations. A parliamentary 
inquiry in 1559 had stated that the Italians, above all 

1 Plays Co7tfuted in Five Actions. 
- Op. cit, p. 80. 

3 Ibid. Ascham had probably in mind Fenton's transla- 
tion of Bandello, dedicated to Lady Mary Sidney. 



THE ITALIAN DANGER 1 69 

Others, should be guarded against, since they passed 
to and fro everywhere, " serve all princes at once," and 
" with their perfumed gloves and wanton presents, and 
gold enough to boot if need be, work what they list, 
and lick the fat even from our beards." ^ From 
time to time many similar expressions of opinion can 
be found.^ In a speech against Elizabeth's marrying 
a foreigner, particular reference was made to the im- 
morality of the Italians.^ 

In France, where the power of the Italians was even 
greater than in England, a similar reaction of anti- 
Italian feeling had been going on. Jacques Grevin, 
Henri Estienne, Jacques Tahureau and Jean de la 
Taille, all satirized those who aped the Italian fashions, 
and were then trying to make the French language a 
servile copy of Italian. A special attack was made 
by Gentillet against Machiavelli, whose name, in con- 
sequence, passed into an English byword for tyranny 
and treachery. The Huguenot Languet, in a letter to 
Sidney, also called attention to the fact that the coun- 
tries which made use of Italian counsels in their gov- 
ernment had, in consequence, been involved in the 
greatest calamities."* 

The most interesting, however, of all anti-Italian 
literature was a work on the subtlety of the Italians, 



1 Hist. Mss. Com., Hatfield House, I, 163. 

2 Vide Silver, Paradoxes of Defettce. 
^ Strype, Sir Tkof?ias Smith, p. 233. 

* Correspondence, Epist. XXXIII, cited in Zouch's Sidney, 
p. 79. 



I/O ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

which bade the nations of Europe rise up in common 
defence against Italy.-^ From internal evidence the 
book was probably written by a Frenchman. There 
was, however, nothing very unusual in this ; Claudius 
Hollyband wrote in English, as did likewise the Italian 
Vincenzo Saviolo. 

The writer traced the alleged cunning of the 
Italians from its earliest origin in Roman times. 
He found it even in Romulus, the murderer of 
Remus, in Numa Pompilius, " a most subtle in- 
venter of a forged religion " ; in Julius Caesar, 
who had pillaged all Europe. He saw it con- 
tinuing after the papacy had taken the place of 
paganism. Although intending neither to censure 
the Pope nor even the Church of Rome, he could 
not help noticing the fact that the subtle Italians 
borrowed the papal authority to mask their wiles. 
Whatever was done under the name of the Pope 
was in reality only " the counsel and invention of 
the Italians of Rome." In this manner, the clergy, 
fighting over the interpretation of biblical texts, 
fell into the traps laid for them by the wily Italians, 
who were always inventing new obscurities, so that 
their assistance might be summoned to show the way 
to heaven and salvation, that they might thus reap 
profit from the ruin of others. 

If the Italians could only obtain a footing north of 
the Alps, the writer went on to say, by various shifts 
and subtleties they tore asunder all bonds of friend- 

1 The Subtlety of the Italians, by F. G. B. A., 1 591. 



THE ITALIAN DANGER I7I 

ship, and set the different nations fighting among 
themselves, after which they would " fish for their 
riches and dignities." Their crafty and deceitful 
nature had, without difficulty, been able to domi- 
nate other people and obtain their money from them. 
In this manner, Catherine de' Medici, with her coun- 
cil of Italians, had disposed of all the affairs of 
France. " Like bloodsuckers, they sucked the blood 
of the poor people as dry as if it had been crushed 
out in a wine press," filling their own purses in the 
meantime, while they managed to throw the blame on 
other people's shoulders. If any one should ask what 
had become of all the money levied in France, he had 
only to go to Florence and see its sumptuous buildings 
and " the wondrous wealth, wherein many Florentines 
swim, which came like poor snakes into France." 

The supposed method by which the ItaHans set out 
to ruin a country was described in detail. They 
would begin with one part or class, and then gradually 
work round to the others. One could not but admire 
their ingenuity, in reaping every advantage to the 
utmost. They used religion merely as a cloak to 
domination, caring for its truth only in so far as it was 
of use to them. In order to make the kings of the 
earth their vassals, they stirred up wars among 
them. "To fish money out of Judaea" they had 
brought about the Crusades. To blind the youth 
of other countries to their machinations, they made 
use of Jesuits to fill the chairs of universities. By 
every conceivable means, from ecclesiastical patron- 



1/2 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

age to bestowing empty titles on monarchs, they 
secured the upper hand.^ 

It was only the Italian form of Catholicism which 
was so savagely attacked ; of all other Catholics the 
writer spoke in the very highest terms of respect, even 
half suggesting that another Pope be established for 
the rest of Europe, who should be independent of 
Rome. His grievance was largely an economic one, 
as was Luther's, when he wrote that German money 
took wings to fly across the Alps but never returned.^ 
The remedy proposed was to be of equal benefit to 
Catholic and Protestant nations. If men did only 
observe, they would see that God had set as pro- 
tection for the rest of mankind, on one side the 
Alps and on the other the deep seas. The Italians 
ought, therefore, to be shut up from all access or 
entrance into other countries. If such means were 
adopted, " we no more shall be exposed to the lamen- 
table miseries into which they were wont to bring us 
headlong at their own lust and pleasure." 

Ill 

It seems remarkable that one of the most curious 
types of EngHshmen should be known by no account 
of himself, or of his own tastes and peculiarities, but 

1 To many the power of Rome seemed the centre of Italian 
schemes; Thomas Palmer declared it to be " the forge of every 
policy that setteth princes at odds." Method of Travel, p. 44. 

2 Address to the German Nobility. Ed. Wace and Buchheim, 
p. 32 et seq. 



THE ITALIAN DANGER 1 73 

only by the satires and invectives written against him. 
The Itahanate Englishman, who followed Italian ways / 
in everything, who admired no wisdom which did not ' 
come from across the Alps, who regulated his life to f 
imitate the Italians, wrote no defence of himself. He \ 
who was accused of corrupting his native land by 
introducing foreign vices, paid no attention to the 
popular voice. His own position at court was secure 
from the fumings of moralists and the bitter attacks of 
pamphleteers. Some were even afraid to attack him ; 
Harrison, for instance, in a rather general condemnation, 
ended abruptly by refusing to say more about Italia- 
nates, lest he should offend too much.^ But although 
unaffected by popular clamor, it is noteworthy that 
his example was not followed, and the very name of 
Italianate Enghshman passed into disuse, even though 
Bishop Hall, and much later James Howell, were still 
to warn their readers of the continuance of the Italian 
danger. 

The great success of Italianism in England con-1 
tributed to its final overthrow. Along with the ridicu- 
lous aping of Italian fashions on the part of the 
courtiers,- a freedom was professed by many from all -" 
moral and religious restraints, till the Englishman return- ) 
ing from Italy began to be looked upon as an enemy 
of society. The vices he flaunted so openly were 
turned against him and served to fan the flame of 
Puritanism. At the same time the Italianate Eng- 

1 Harrison, o/>. cit., p. 129 et seq. 

2 Vide The English Ape, the Italian Imitation, 1588. 



174 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

lishman cannot fairly be charged with being the only 
factor in the reaction which now made itself felt against 
Italy, nor were the dangers of immorality, of atheism 
and the power of the Roman church, the only charges 
which were brought up against Italy. A hatred for every- 
thing foreign had long existed in the English mind, and 
the competition of Italians in commerce and trade only 
increased the dislike. Along with it, too, there went 
a growing feeHng of nationality, which stoutly rebelled 
at every sign of alien power; it penetrated even the 
scholarly world, where it brought about a strong move- 
ment against the introduction of foreign and learned 
words into the English language, protesting against 
both Italianisms and the so-called ink-horn terms.-^ 

In the century and a half which extended from the 
first beginnings of the English Renaissance to the time 
when with the death of Ehzabeth it properly ended, 
much of what was good in Italy had been transplanted 
to England. In certain cases the work failed of result ; 
the fine arts, for instance, can scarcely be said to have 
taken English root ; but, generally speaking, whatever 
was suitable for the Northern Land had found its way 
there. Scholarship, literature, social life, and even 
statecraft, were all affected by the Italian influence. 
Toward the end of the sixteenth century, however, 
England, still growing in the fulness of its youth, had, 
as it were, little to learn from the aged Italy, which 
then lay helpless beneath the invader. The degen- 
eracy of the country was apparent to all thoughtful 

1 Cf. Gascoigne, Wot-ks. 



THE ITALIAN DANGER 1 75 

persons. Those who then combated its influence should 
for that reason not be thought bUnd PhiHstines, anxious 
only to destroy what they were themselves unable to 
understand, but stern-minded moralists, who saw the 
hollowness of what once was great, and reahzed the 
dangers which lay in its decay. With the beginning!-^ 
of the seventeenth century, moreover, the Italian in- ■-'■ 
fluence was in many ways stationary, if not actually on ' 
the wane ; the want of fresh vigor to reenforce its 
claims, perhaps no less than the attacks of moralists, 
had brought it to a standstill ; but more than anything 
else was the fact that its place had been filled by Spain 
and France, then growing in their strength. Both coun- 
tries, influenced by Italian traditions, contained beneath 
the surface the civilization and culture of Italy, which 
was often outwardly hidden from view. It was Italy 
transformed, passed through another mould, and bear- 
ing on its surface the stamp of France or Spain, — 
but it was Italy none the less, whose foster-children 
were now to continue her work. It is for this reason 
that the history of Italian influence in England after 
the death of EHzabeth has in one way little new to offer. 
For a time, indeed, the influence hngered at the court i 
of the Stuarts ; the poetry of Drummond, the masks i 
of Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones, bore witness that it 
was not yet dead, while the mansions erected by the 
latter showed that the architecture of the Italian 
Renaissance could flourish in England as well ; but 
its vitahty in the hfe of the English people had de- \ 
parted once and for all. — ' 



PART SECOND 



CHAPTER V 

THE ITALIANS IN ENGLAND : CHURCHMEN, 
ARTISTS AND TRAVELLERS 



The presence of Italians in England was by no means 
unusual, even before the conquest. The many ties with 
Rome caused papal legates and collectors, who were 
almost invariably Italians, to cross the channel fre- 
quently. Moreover they were often granted English 
benefices. Five successive bishops of Worcester were 
Italians, and Bishop Grosseteste, about the year 1250, 
refused to admit an Italian ignorant of English to a 
living in his diocese.^ Cardinal Gualli, a little earlier, 
conferred Chesterton Rectory to the monastery of St. 
Andrews, which he had founded at Vercelli.^ Italians 
likewise were found at Oxford from time to time. In 
the twelfth century, a certain Vicario had been called 
by the Archbishop of Canterbury to introduce the 

^ Vide Calendars of entries in Papal Registers, Bliss Series; 
the Marini Vatican Transcripts (Brit. Mus. Mss. Dept.) ; Steven- 
son and Bliss, Roman Transcripts, Record Office, London; 
J. Paton, British History and Papal Claims, for accounts of 
the relations existing in the Middle Ages between England 
and the papacy. 

- Beckynton, II, 344. It was probably in this way that the 
Anglo-Saxon Vercelli Book found its way there. 

179 



l80 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

new study of Roman law in the university,' and a little 
later, Francesco d' Accorso, a lecturer in civil law at 
Bologna, who had attached himself to Edward the 
First, and became his counsellor, also settled at Oxford. 
It has even been thought by some that Dante studied 
theology there. Strangers from foreign lands were 
often drawn to Oxford during the period when it 
was one of the great centres of medieval learning. 
Specific reference was made to its Italian students 
in a letter of 1454, addressed to the Earl of Salis- 
bury, chancellor of the university, complaining of the 
foreign students who came over during Lent, ostensibly 
to preach and shrive penitents, but in reality to receive 
the alms intended for such Italians as were regular 
students " to the injury of these last mentioned and 
discredit of our university." "- 

In addition to the Italian scholars sent for by Duke 
Humphrey, several others of distinction came, likewise, 
on different occasions. Poggio, for instance, searched 
EngHsh monasteries for rare manuscripts, but found 
nothing of interest. " Most of their libraries are full of 
foolishness," he wrote in disgust.^ Although profoundly 
dissatisfied by his stay in London among the"Sarma- 
tians and Scythians," and accusing the English of caring 
little for letters,* he formed, nevertheless, enduring 
friendships with several Englishmen, with whom he 
afterwards corresponded, ^neas Sylvius, whose visit 
to England was not dictated by the same motives, pre- 

^ Tiraboschi, Storia della Lette7'attira Italiana, III, 442. 
'-^ Epist. Acad., I, 322. ^ EpisL, I, 70. * Ibid., I, 43, 74. 



THE ITALIANS IN ENGLAND l8l 

served pleasanter remembrances of his stay there and 
of the learned men he met. One of Guarino's former 
pupils, the Venetian, Piero del Monte, who had first 
come over as papal collector, made friends with Duke 
Humphrey, and later dedicated to him his philosophi- 
cal dramas.^ It is only natural to suppose that the 
love of letters, then universal in Italy, caused Italian 
churchmen abroad to stimulate the latent zeal for 
learning they saw everywhere about them. 

Toward the end of the fifteenth century a number 
of Italians were occupying important positions in 
England. One of the most learned of these, Giovanni 
Gigli, better known as John of Sighs, had first been 
sent to England as papal collector ; he was subse- 
quently made Canon of Wells, and still later Bishop 
of Worcester. He was in the semce of both the Vati- 
can and the king, being successively commissioner of 
papal indulgences, and Henry the Seventh's diplo- 
matic agent and orator at Rome. He showed there 
his friendship for Oxford, when the authorities requested 
his aid in obtaining certain favors from the Pope. He 
had not forgotten, he said in his reply, that he was a 
member of the university, although an unworthy one.^ 
Giovanni Gigli was a poet, as well, and on the occasion 
of Henry's marriage to Elizabeth of York, he composed 
a Latin epithalamium in the Virgilian style, in which 
Parliament was represented as entreating Henry to 
marry in order to ward off the evils of a civil war. 

Peter Carmeliano, of Brescia, was another Italian 

1 Voigt, II, 257. - Epist. Acad., II, 564, 567. 



1 82 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

poet of this period, in England. His earliest work, on 
the life of St. Mary the Egyptian, had praised Richard 
the Third as a model king and pattern of virtue ; but 
little more than a year after his death, in a poem 
which celebrated Prince Arthur's birth, he denounced 
him as a bloodthirsty monster ready to commit any 
crime. After describing his defeat, and the accession 
of Henry to the throne, he bade Englishmen rejoice 
over the birth of b^ royal heir. This poem was written 
in hexameters, in imitation of Virgil. Carmeliano, who 
was a kind of court poet, wrote considerable verse of 
different kinds. He was also Latin secretary to Henry 
the Seventh and one of the king's chaplains. As a 
reward for his services various pensions were granted 
him.^ Later, his poetic functions seem to have been 
dispensed with. He became lute player to Henry the 
Eighth, but wrote one last poem on the death of the 
Scottish king at Flodden Field. His verse was not very 
successful, while his false quantities furnished amuse- 
ment for Erasmus. It is noteworthy, however, that of 
the very few contemporary narratives of the reign of 
Henry the Seventh, three should have been written by 
Itahans, and a fourth writer, Johannes Opicius, was 
probably likewise of Italian origin. It is also remark- 
able that the Latin secretaries of the king, Carmeliano, 
and then Ammonio and Peter Vannes, should all have 
been Italians, as if to prove that polished Latin could 
then properly be written by no one else. 

1 Campbell, History of Henry VII, II, 244, 289; J. Gairdner, 
Memorials of Henry VII. 



THE ITALIANS IN ENGLAND 1 83 

Several other Italian churchmen who were more 
or less connected with the English court during this 
period were likewise interested in the growth of 
humanism. It can scarcely be supposed that it was 
chance which led the shrewd, calculating nature of 
Henry the Seventh to cultivate their friendship, as he 
did in many instances. It was rather that he found 
his own ideas reflected in them, and was able to make 
use of their services and intelligence. Silvestro GigH, 
who had been trained by his uncle in diplomacy, and 
succeeded him in the bishopric of Worcester, was 
appointed by the king his master of ceremonies,^ and 
later resident ambassador at Rome. In after years he 
became Wolsey's chief diplomatic agent there, and 
was in constant correspondence with the king and car- 
dinal. Like most other Italians of that age, he was a 
man of letters as well, corresponding with Erasmus. 
The example offered to English churchmen of Italian 
dignitaries who were patrons of the new learning and 
interested in humanism, might well have led them 
on in a similar direction, had such encouragement 
been necessary. 

Adrian de Castello belonged also to the same group. 
After having been papal nuncio to Scotland, he had 
been sent by Pope Innocent as collector of Peter's 
pence in England. He became, however, an English 
citizen, and was employed by Henry the Seventh as 
his agent in Rome, and still later as ambassador to 
Alexander the Sixth, who conferred on him an English 

1 Bernard Andre, Annates Henrici VII, pp. 86, 122-123. 



1 84 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

bishopric. He was also a man of the most cultivated 
tastes, and the author of a Latin poem published by 
Aldus. 

By far the most interesting, hoAvever, of the Italian 
friends of Henry was Polydore Vergil, the historian. 
He was already an author of some reputation^ when 
appointed papal sub-collector. In England he found 
his brother, who was there as a merchant, and his friend, 
Adrian de Castello. Although he himself was later to 
receive ecclesiastical preferment, and to hold several 
lucrative benefices in the church, his life was spent 
chiefly in Hterary and historical writing. 

Having found, as he alleged, the English annals con- 
fused and unknown, even to natives, he had deter- 
mined to write a short history of the country. The 
historical method of this work, compiled, it is said, at 
the request of Henry himself, was far in advance of 
anything England had known till then. In spite of 
many errors and prejudices, it was nevertheless the 
first history written along modern lines in which any 
attempt was made to weigh authorities. Its author, 
moreover, was a friend of Henry the Seventh, in com- 
plete sympathy with his task, and one who realized the 
rapid changes which had come over England, and 
marked the transition between the vanishing Middle 
Ages and the Renaissance now dawning on the land. 
It was a pity for his reputation that Polydore Vergil 
did not die before his friend and patron. Although he 

1 His De Invenforibiis Rei'um passed through i lo editions 
and was translated into English. 



THE ITALIANS IN ENGLAND 185 

returned to Italy after his death, he came back once 
more to be Adrian de Castello's factor in England. 
Both, however, fell into disgrace on account of some 
over-frank letters which had cast reflections on Wolsey 
and Henry the Eighth. One of these, containing im- 
putations against both Pope and king, was intercepted, 
probably by Adrian's enemy, Silvestro Gigli, the Bishop 
of Worcester, who sent it to Andrea Ammonio, Poly- 
dore's rival. It was shown to Wolsey, and a few days 
later Vergil was a prisoner in the Tower, with his col- 
lectorship forfeited.^ In his captivity he addressed the 
most servile letters to W^olsey, stating he would like to 
bow in worship before him, in order that his spirit might 
rejoice in him " as in God my Saviour." He was released 
in 15 16, and took his revenge, when out of Wolsey 's 
reach, by abusing him in his history of England. 

Henry the Eighth, who succeeded his father, like- 
wise welcomed many Italians at the court. " He is 
glad to see them, and especially Italians," wrote 
Savorgnano.^ Ammonio, who had come to England as 
the papal collector, was appointed his Latin secretary. 
Ammonio had enjoyed a reputation for classical schol- 
arship, even in Rome, and in later years he was known 
for his Latin verse. Like Polydore Vergil, he was also 
a friend of Erasmus, to whom he confided occasional 
grievances regarding the barbarism of the " inhospita- 
ble Britons."^ He was a friend, however, of Linacre, 

1 Brewer, Henry VIII, I, 264 et seq. 

2 Cal. Si. Pap., Ven., IV, 287. 

3 Cal. St. Pap., Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, I, No. 1948. 



1 86 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

Colet and More, and formed part of their small cote- 
rie in London. When afterwards he was appointed 
papal nuncio at the English court, he was succeeded 
in his secretaryship by Peter Vannes, another Italian. 
Vannes himself, who became Wolsey's secretary, was 
with him on many of his missions, and accompanied 
Sir Francis Bryan on his unsuccessful embassy to 
Rome, when it was intended that he should bribe the 
cardinals to declare the marriage of Henry the Eighth 
with Katherine invalid, and Pope Julius' brief a for- 
gery.^ Several other English diplomatic charges were 
intrusted to Vannes in the course of his long life. 

It was especially in the matter of the king's divorce 
that Wolsey proposed to employ Italians, not only as 
more Hkely to secure aid at the Vatican, but also con- 
fessedly on the ground of their being more skilful 
diplomatists. Among his agents, besides the ones 
mentioned, were Ghinucci, Bishop of Worcester, Sir 
Thomas Spinelli, and the two Casales, John and Greg- 
ory, who was afterwards knighted.^ By degrees, Enghsh 
diplomacy was able to dispense with the churchmen 
sent from Rome, on whom in former times it had 
relied so largely. With the rapid growth of inter- 
national relations centring around the Itahan apple of 
discord and the rise of the Spanish power, a new 
set of men had been found necessary in diplomacy. In 
part, they were humble, and often unknown, like the 

1 Vide Vococ\i, Records of the Reformation, I, no et seq. 

2 Vide Marini, Vatican Transcripts, Brit. Mus., Vol. XXXVII, 
passim. 



THE ITALIANS IN ENGLAND 18/ 

numerous news agents employed by Thomas Crom- 
well, who made use of their services, just as Lord 
Burleigh did in after years. Many of these were 
Italian merchants, whose natural shrewdness, added to 
the facilities of communication they enjoyed, placed 
them in a peculiarly favorable position for the rapid 
forwarding of information. In the higher ranks of Eng- 
lish diplomacy there were other Italians as well. Italy 
itself had offered the first examples of trained diplomats, 
while, moreover, the talented and pliable nature of the 
Italian of the Renaissance lent itself readily to all such 
work, especially if it had anything to do with the court. 
A number of Italians from time to time visited Eng- 
land, either out of curiosity, or else engaged on some 
mission. Marco Savorgnano, the celebrated military 
engineer, was perhaps an example of the first kind ; 
Cardinal Campeggio, the papal legate and a protector 
of the new learning, of the second. Such missions, 
however, were not exclusively diplomatic. Baldessare 
Castighone, the finest type of the ItaUan courtier, 
came over to acknowledge the Order of the Garter, 
conferred upon his master, the Duke of Urbino.^ He 
himself, as he wrote his mother, was anxious to see 
the country, and looked forward to the company of his 
good friend Bishop Gigh, who "although a Floren- 
tine [Luccan], yet holds a rich bishopric in England 
and is the King's ambassador with the pope." He 
was accepted by Henry the Seventh as proxy to the 

1 Vide Dennistoun, Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino, II, 
443 ei seq. 



1 88 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

duke, and installed in his place a Knight of the 
Garter. The king, moreover, showed him every pos- 
sible attention, knighted him personally, and made 
him- presents of horses and dogs, and a gold chain 
bearing the royal badge.^ 

From time to time, during the sixteenth century, 
numerous Italians took up their residence at court, 
or were in the royal service. The musicians, for 
instance, were " almost all ItaHans." ^ The same thing 
was largely true of the court physicians. Henry the 
Eighth's surgeon was Antonio Ciabo ; Battista de 
Boeria and Fernando de Vittoria were also his doctors, 
with Linacre and John Chamber, both of whom had 
studied in Italy. Later, Jerome Cardan, the greatest 
physician of his day, who was also a friend of Sir John 
Cheke's, was entreated to give an opinion on the 
health of Edward the Sixth. He cast his horoscope 
and predicted a long life, but in after years explained 
this by showing the influences he had to submit to, 
owing to the intrigues at the English court. Edward 
granted him an audience and gave him a hundred 
scudi, not so much as he had received from the Scot- 
tish king. A more liberal present would have been 
given, had he only acknowledged Edward's title as 
king; but as a prominent Catholic, who intended to 
return to Italy, he could not do so.^ Cardan recorded 
his impressions of England in the Dialogue on Death. 

1 Leliere del Conte B. Castiglione, Letters XIII, XIV, XXVII. 

2 Florio, First Fruites ; Ubaldini, Ms. cit., f. 43 b. 

^ Vide Cardan's Vita ; Waters, Jerome Cardan, p. 132 et seq. 



THE ITALIANS IN ENGLAND 1 89 

He spoke of the English imitating the ItaUans in 
habit, manner and dress as closely as they could. 
They also seemed similar to him in appearance. 
The difference in speech struck him chiefly, since 
he could not understand a word of the language. 
He thought them Italians gone mad : " The tongue 
is curved upon the palate ; they turn about their 
words in the mouth, and make a hissing sound with 
their teeth." 

Among other Italian physicians at the English 
court was Pietro Maria Adelmare, the father of 
Sir Julius Caesar, the famous judge. He was the 
medical adviser of both Mary and Elizabeth, from 
whom he received fees of a hundred pounds for a 
single attendance. Giulio Borgarucci also, who first 
attended the Earl of Leicester, and distinguished 
himself in his treatment of plague sufferers by bleed- 
ing, later became the court physician; Elizabeth, 
moreover, held her Venetian doctor, Caesar Scacco, in 
such high regard that she even wrote the doge, re- 
questing that his stay in England might not prove 
prejudicial to his personal affairs in Italy.^ ]\Iany 
other ItaHans at court enjoyed the protection of the 
Virgin Queen. " Doth she love Italians ? Yes, sir, 
very well. Delighteth she to speak with them? Yes, 
sir, and she speaketh very eloquently," wrote Florio.- 
Even on the list of her New Years' gifts among those 
to whom perfumed gloves or gilt plate were given ap- 

1 Cal. St. Pap., Ven., VII, 55 1. 
^ First Fruites, ch. 15. 



190 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

peared such names as Bassano, Caliardi, Lupo and 
Ubaldini.^ Petruccio Ubaldini was an example of the 
better type of Italian adventurers then to be found at 
every European court. He had first come over to 
England in the reign of Henry the Eighth, and having 
obtained government employ, had served in the war 
with Scotland. Shortly after this he wrote, probably 
for the Venetian Signory, an account of English man- 
ners, customs and institutions.^ He found a patron in 
the Earl of Arundel, who presented him to the queen. 
The rest of his life he passed as one of the hangers-on 
at the court, engaged in teaching Italian, transcribing 
and illuminating manuscripts, rhyming and writing, or 
translating historical works. Twice he exchanged gifts 
with the queen, although never quite a courtier, nor 
yet a dependant. He was one of the many Italians 
who lived amid courtly surroundings, ready to turn 
hands and brains to any account. He tried to be 
historian, soldier, poet and artist, showing ahke the 
many-sidedness and versatility of his nation and his 
century. 

One of his books, a hfe of Charlemagne,^ was dedi- 
cated by Ubaldini to the gentlemen of England in ap- 
preciation of their courtesy toward foreigners. In its 
preface he bade Englishmen rejoice, since Italian 

1 Add. Ms. Brit. Mus., 4827. 

2 Add. Ms. Brit. Mus., 10,169. Several other transcripts 
exist of this interesting manuscript. 

* La Vita di Carlo Magno, da Petruccio Ubaldini, Londra, 
1581. 



THE ITALIANS IN ENGLAND 191 

could be printed in England as well as in Italy. His 
own book he proclaimed had been the first so printed 
" by the diligence and effort of your citizen John Wolfe, 
and you will be able to have other such works from 
day to day, if you should give it that welcome, that I 
expect you will." Ubaldini's claim, however, was not 
strictly accurate. In 1545 already, a little work by John 
Clerk, on the resurrection of the dead,^ had been 
printed in London, in Latin, English, French and 
Italian ; and a few years later an Italian translation 
of a Latin catechism was published,- while another 
curious work also appeared not long afterward.^ 
Ubaldini's history marked, however, a real beginning. 
Battista Castiglione, the queen's Italian master, in 
publishing a book by Accontio, which he dedicated 
to her,^ stated that he had made up his mind to print it, 
owing to the fact that a young Londoner (John Wolfe) 
had just returned from Italy where he had learned the 
art, and was now able to print in Italian. Several books 
soon appeared from his press. Among these were 
the Pastor Fido of Guarini ^ and Tasso's Amintay both 
published at Jacopo Castelvetri's expense, who said that, 
encouraged by friends, he was having them printed 
in London, on account of the great length of time 
necessary to obtain them from Italy. One edition 

1 Opusculum Plane Divimim, London, 1545. 

^ Catechismo per amaestrare i fanciulli, Londra (?), I553(?). 

* Esposizione di Giovanbattista Agnello^ Londra, 1566. 

* Una Esortazione al Timor di Dio, Londra, 1 590 (?). 

^ // Pastor fido ; A spese di Jacopo Castelvetri, Londra, 1591. 



192 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

of the Principe^ although bearing the press-mark of 
Palermo was probably also printed in England, as 
were likewise a number of Giordano Bruno's works, 
which first saw light on British soil.^ Giordano Bruno 
was the greatest of all the Italians who came over 
to England in the sixteenth century ; he was at the 
court of Elizabeth from 1583 to 1585, and came in 
contact with the best English minds of that age. Two 
of his dialogues were dedicated by him to Sir Philip 
Sidney, and in his Supper of Ashes he gave an account 
of a banquet at Fulke Greville's house, recording 
some very vivid impressions of the English people. 
His visit, however, left only doubtful traces on contem- 
porary literature, and was barely noticed even by his 
EngHsh friends. 

II 

The genius of Italy in the Renaissance found its 
noblest expression in the fine arts. It was only natural, 
therefore, that some of the many Italian artists in an 
age of wandering should have found their way to Eng- 
land. It was really more remarkable that none of the 
first importance were attracted there. The arts, how- 
ever, flourished in Italy, in the very midst of internal 
disturbances. Inducements to travel were not great, so 
long as reward awaited merit at home. Yet there 
were several Italians of note at the emperor's court, 
and Francis the First gathered round him such ar- 
tists as Leonardo da Vinci, Benvenuto Cellini and Pri- 

1 Several bear other press-marks as well. Vide Athencewn, 
April 30, 1898. 



THE ITALIANS IN ENGLAND 193 

maticcio, although the greatest of the three, accom- 
pUshed nothing in the land of exile. 

Pietro Torrigiano was the best known of the Italian 
artists who came to seek their fortune in England. 
After leading a life of adventure, and having been a 
soldier of fortune, he was persuaded by some Floren- 
tine merchants to accompany them to London. The 
execution of the royal shrine in the chapel of Henry 
the Seventh at Westminster was entrusted to him in 
default of native workmen. During the years he was 
engaged on it, he executed many things in marble and 
bronze for the king, although one of his best works 
was the tomb of Dr. John Young, master of the Rolls.^ 
His masterpiece, still preserved at Westminster, was 
the tomb of Lady Margaret of Richmond, which has 
been called *' the most beautiful and venerable figure 
that the Abbey contains."^ It seems strange, in 
contemplating it, to note the contrast between its 
Florentine Renaissance sculpture, and the mediaeval 
architecture of the cathedral. It is more particularly 
in certain details that the Tuscan fancifulness and 
wealth of ornamentation show themselves even though 
the lightness of touch and joyousness of the school of 
Donatello were wanting in his chisel. He himself 
made use of Gothic shafts in the ornament, as if to 
reconcile to the Renaissance the spirit of the Middle 
Ages, long forgotten in his native city. 

1 Formerly in the Rolls Chapel, now in the Museum of the 
Record Office, London, 

2 Dean Stanley, Memorials of Westminster Abbey, p. i(^\. 

o 



194 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

Torrigiano's most important work, however, was to 
be the tomb of Henry the Seventh and his queen, also 
in the Abbey. The contract for this was drawn up in 
15 12. He entered into an agreement with the king's 
executors, " to make and work, or do to be made and 
wrought, well, surely, cleanly, workmanly, curiously, 
and substantially for the sum of ;£i5oo sterHng . . . 
a tomb or sepulture of white marble and of black 
touchstone, with images, figures, beasts, and other 
things of copper gilt . . . together with other diverse 
images, epitaphs and other things. . . . [This agreement 
to be entered upon] by Peter Torrysany of the city of 
Florence, painter."^ The tomb itself, although dif- 
fering from the conventional Florentine type, yet shows 
the Tuscan hand, in the fine bronze figures, the medal- 
lions of the base, and in many of the minor details. 
It is a significant proof of the lack of native talent and 
dependence on Italians, that the execution of royal 
tombs should have been intrusted to them. Another 
similar undertaking was, however, to fall through. 
This was the tomb Henry the Eighth wanted for him- 
self and Queen Katherine. It was likewise to be of 
white marble and black touchstone, but " more greater 
by the fourth part," than his father's and to cost ^2000. 
Wolsey, one of whose ideas it probably was, had charge 
of the financial arrangements. After prolonged nego- 
tiations with the king, who was unable to make up his 
mind to order it, Torrigiano left in great temper for 
Italy. It was on this occasion that Rinaldo de Ricasoli, 
^ Cited in Archeologia, XVI, 84, 



THE ITALIANS IN ENGLAND 195 

consul of the Florentine nation in London, wrote to 
the signory in Florence, requesting them to see to it 
that he should get none of the money deposited by the 
king for the altar, since he had left England without 
his Majesty's permission and under dishonorable cir- 
cumstances, perhaps to the detriment of the Floren- 
tine colony.^ He returned to England, however, in 
15 1 9, possibly at the instance of the signory. It is 
significant of the manner in which artistic work was 
then conducted, that before his return he entered into 
an agreement with Antonio de Lorenzo, Antonio called 
Toto del Nunziata, a painter, and later with Giovanni 
Luigi da Verona, who bound themselves to work with 
him for four and a half years and to practise their arts 
in Italy, France, Flanders, England and Germany, or 
in any other part of the world, for a salary of three 
gold florins a month the first year, and forty ducats 
thereafter a year besides the cost of food, lodgings, and 
horse hire.- He himself told Benvenuto Celhni, whom 
he wanted to engage, that the king of England had 
intrusted him with a great undertaking, and he had in 
consequence gone to Florence to procure the aid 
of as many young men as possible. On his return 
to London he and his assistants completed the altar,' 
for which the king had previously advanced a thou- 

1 Cited in Milanesi's Vasari, IV, 262 note. 

2 Ibid. 

^ Like so many other works of art, it was destroyed during 
lue civil wars. Three pieces of it were, however, preserved, and 
have been set up as an altar by Dean Stanley. 



196 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

sand pounds. Torrigiano's irascible temperament did 
not long permit him to enjoy quiet among "those 
beasts the Enghsh " as he was wont to call them, and 
he left for Spain, where some of his best works are 
still preserved. 

Other Italian artists also came over to seek service 
under a monarch whose overflowing coffers seemed to 
promise reward to all alike. Guido Mazzoni of Modena, 
whose sobriquet of Paganino was later anglicized into 
that of Pageny, had previously followed Charles the 
Eighth to Paris, and then crossed over to England 
where he designed a tomb for Henry the Seventh, 
which was, however, rejected. 

Among the painters employed by Henry the Eighth 
were Vincent Volpe, Anthony Toto, Antonio Cavallari, 
Bartholomew Penni, and even a woman miniaturist, 
Alice Carmellian, a relative probably of Carmeliano, 
the court poet.^ Little is known of Vincent Volpe, 
save that in 15 14 he painted the streamers and ban- 
ners for the great ship Henry Grace a Dieu. It is 
interesting to note among the causes which make the 
presence of foreigners in England often difficult to 
detect, that he anglicized his name to Fox. 

Antonio Toto, likewise an architect and designer 
of masques, was considered the best of the Italian 
painters in England. He had studied under the 
younger Ghirlandajo, and had then been engaged 
by Torrigiano to accompany him to England, where 
he entered the royal service as " Sergeant painter," 
1 Archeologia, XXXIX, 22. 



THE ITALIANS IN ENGLAND 1 97 

his name being usually associated with that of Bartholo- 
mew Penni, another Florentine. The Italian frescoes 
in one of the rooms of Cardinal Wolsey's apartment 
at Hampton Court are almost certainly the work of 
either Penni or Toto. The latter, who was naturalized 
an Englishman, remained long in the service of Henry 
the Eighth, and, according to Vasari, executed many 
works for the king. It is remarkable that most of the 
Italian artists were in some way connected with 
Wolsey, whose orders were usually given in the name 
of the king and who, amid the duties of state, found 
time for the encouragement of art and learning. 
Torrigiano's real successors in England were Benedetto 
da Rovezzano and Giovanni da Majano. The former 
was engaged by Wolsey through Cromwell, to prepare 
his tomb. It was to be on a magnificent scale, worthy 
of the tastes of a cardinal who was such a lover of 
art, and far to surpass in splendor that of Henry the 
Seventh. ^ The sculptor labored over it for five years. 
But when Wolsey died in disgrace and was buried in 
the Abbey Church at Leicester, the king tried to make 
use of as much of the tomb as he could, although 
according to Vasari, Baccio Bandinelli had prepared a 
beautiful model in wood, with wax figures, which was in- 
tended for him. Rovezzano, however, was left in charge 
of the royal monument, and cast it in metal. Among 
the founders he employed were several other Italians, 
Pietro Baldi, Giovanni Utrin, and two " engineers," 
Rinieri and Ambrogio. The monument, which Wolsey 
1 Vide Arch. Journal^ September, 1894, pp. i, 59, 203 ei seq. 



198 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

had begun was left unfinished at the king's death, in 
the Lady Chapel of Henry the Seventh at Windsor, 
and was never completed. Its subsequent history is 
not without interest. Charles the First, another lover 
of art, wished to be buried in it, but after his execu- 
tion Parliament ordered the sale of all the bronze 
work on the monument. In the beginning of the last 
century, the marble sarcophagus was removed from 
Windsor to be used for Nelson's tomb, in the crypt of 
St. Pauls, and a little later the pavement it had rested 
on was taken up to build the royal vault for George 
the Third.i 

The materials for the history of the Florentine 
sculptors in England during this period, are not very 
plentiful.^ When all but the greatest artists were con- 
sidered craftsmen, it is scarcely to be wondered that 
not much attention was given to the lives of the others. 
It can be said, however, that there was nothing un- 
usual in the presence of Italian artists in England ; 
the Bernardis for instance, settled at Chichester in 
1 5 19, at the invitation of Bishop Sherburne, and were 
probably the earliest decorative painters in England.^ 
Only very little is really known of the English residence 

1 Blomfield, Renaissance Architecture, I, 13 et seq. 

2 Letters of Torrigiano, Rovezzafio and Majano to Wolsey, 
the records of payments and inventories showing the work 
executed on Wolsey's tomb, and the accounts and records of 
the work done on Henry the Eighth's tomb from 1530 to 1536 
are cited by Mr. Higgins, in his valuable article in the. Arch. 
Journal, September, 1894. 

^ Digby Wyatt, Foreign Artists in England, p. 227. 



THE ITALIANS IN ENGLAND 199 

of the sculptor Nicholas of Modena, who executed 
the royal effigy at the funeral of Henry the Eighth; 
likewise of John of Padua, who was both a musician 
and the "Devizor of his Majesty's buildings," entering 
afterward the service of the Protector Somerset, whose 
palace on the Strand he very likely built ; ^ or of 
Jerome of Treviso, an imitator of Raphael," who was 
architect, military engineer {inagister iormentoruin) 
and a favorite of Henry the Eighth. Their very 
names prove, however, that the great art of Italy had 
crossed the Alps to find new homes in distant lands. 

The work of another Tuscan sculptor, Giovanni da 
Majano,'' who assisted Rovezzano in the decoration of 
Hampton Court, can be seen there in the well-known 
terra-cotta roundels of Roman emperors.^ The tal- 
ents of the Italian artists were especially required in 
decoration, where their influence in England was then 
chiefly felt. In all matters of detail, ornamentation 
of surfaces, delicate arabesques, plaster modelling, 
terra-cotta medallions, and carving of every kind, they 
excelled. The German traveller, Braun, who was al- 
most a contemporary, spoke of the numerous Italian 
artificers, sculptors, and architects in the service of 
Henry the Eighth. The royal palace of Nonesuch, 

1 Digby Wyatt, op. cit., p. 234. 

2 A picture by him representing the Madonna and the Child 
with saints and angels is in the National Gallery, London. 

^ Often called John de Menns, or Demyans; Rovezzano's 
name was similarly anglicized into Rovesham or Rovesanne. 

* For the terra-cotta busts he received the sum of £2 6s. 8^., 
and for three " histories of Hercules," ;^4 apiece. 



200 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

the greatest building of that age in England, which 
was probably designed by Toto, contained numerous 
statues in plaster, and life-size reliefs representing the 
stories of pagan gods, said by Evelyn to have been the 
work of some celebrated Italian. Camden the anti- 
quary also praised its splendor, and described the 
statuary as rivalling the monuments of ancient Rome. 

The direct influence of Italy in the arts, or rather 
the work of Italians in England at this time, was 
largely confined to the southeastern counties, espe- 
cially around Southampton and Winchester, where 
there were settlements of Italians. It was chiefly the 
product of small wandering handicraftsmen, who often 
carved their arabesques on the plain surfaces left by 
English masons. Another evidence of Italian influ- 
ence can be seen in the use of terra- cotta, and plaster 
work in ceilings and friezes, of common occurrence 
toward the end of the sixteenth century. Although 
local tradition has usually assigned this to travelling 
companies of Italians, it was more likely inspired by 
the work of the Tuscan sculptors of the time of Henry 
the Eighth, from whom many Englishmen learned the 
new style.^ Italian workmen, however, were probably 
employed at times, as, for instance, on the wooden 
screens and stalls in the chapel of King's College, 
Cambridge, where the mouldings show plainly the 
Renaissance design in all its beauty. 

The Italian artists who centred around Wolsey and 

1 Blomfield, op. cit, I, 23, mentions Richard Ridge's work 
at Hampton Court as an example of this. 



THE ITALIANS IN ENGLAND 20I 

Henry the Eighth disappeared as silently as they 
came. Excepting John of Padua, none seem to have 
remained in England after the king's death. The 
English lack of artistic interest and talent caused 
their places to remain unfilled, even though certain 
individuals were trying to encourage art. The first 
Earl of Bedford, who had been in Italy, was probably 
among its patrons. His tomb, dating from 1556, in 
the Russel Chapel at Chenies, is quite in the northern 
Italian style, bearing considerable resemblance to the 
Sforza monument by Solari at Pavia. The ideal treat- 
ment of the eyes, hair and beard all suggest a knowl- 
edge of the antique, unshared by any Englishmen of 
the time ; the arabesque decoration of the cushion 
on which Lady Bedford's head rests is also character- 
istically Italian. The work on the base, which is of 
alabaster incrusted with black marble, may have been 
partly the labor of native artisans, but the statues them- 
selves appear undoubtedly to be the work of an Ital- 
ian, or at least of some thoroughly Italianated Fleming. 
The indirect influence of the Italian artists in Eng- 
land proved of considerable importance. The example 
they set, their technical skill and ingenuity, the novelty 
of their designs and forms, must have come like a 
revelation to English craftsmen. The ancient Gothic 
architecture had degenerated, and the flamboyant style 
could not successfully oppose the Renaissance art 
with its new method of decoration. At the same 
time, the true Italian influence on English architecture 
was not to be felt for some time. Of exact copying 



202 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

from Italian buildings there was little or none. The 
Italian style was considerably modified by transmission 
through different lands, especially France and the 
Low Countries. When it once obtained a foothold in 
England, thousands of native artisans transformed it still 
further, until its original form could scarcely be recog- 
nized.^ In the earlier buildings, however, numerous 
Itahan traces can still be observed. Not only at Hamp- 
ton Court, but at Sutton Place, Surrey, Layer Marney 
in Essex, Guildford, East Barsham and many other 
localities, there was considerable use made of terra- 
cotta for decorative purposes. At Sutton Place, for 
instance, it was utiHzed in the amorini above the hall 
door. The arabesque work in the mullions and the 
small mouldings were all of Italian design.^ 

There were no regular architects in England in the 
sixteenth century. The work was done by so-called 
"surveyors," who as a rule were English. Sometimes, 
as in the building of Wollaton Hall, master workmen 
were sent for from Italy. Most of the stone figures 
adorning the house were likewise Italian. Even the 
pilasters had gondola rings on their pedestals, which 
were copied from Venice. The circular panels con- 
tained busts of classic personages. Many of the niches 
are, however, empty, tradition ascribing the reason to 
the wrecking of the ship which was bringing their 
occupants from Italy.^ 

^ J, Alfred Gotch, Arch, of the Ren., I, xxii. 

2 F. Harrison, Annals of an Old Manor House, p. 126. 

3 Gotch, op. cit.y II, 62. 



THE ITALIANS IN ENGLAND 203 

In numerous other buildings of the Elizabethan 
Age, the Italian influence was strongly marked ; Audley 
End showed it. Moreton Corbet, built in 1599, gave 
the effect of 2, palazzo. Longford Castle, constructed 
a year later, with its use of pilasters and columns, its 
open loggia effect and niches for statues, was quite in 
the Italian style. At Lyveden, the cornice of the 
new building was brought over from Italy. At Hat- 
field there was also use of fresco work, and of Italian 
columns and pilasters, and at Hardwick Hall an 
Italian portico.^ When the queen went to Greenwich 
in 1583, Roger Manners wrote to the Earl of Rutland 
that " she was never in any place better pleased, and 
sure the house, garden, and walks may compare with 
any delicate place in Italy." ^ Gardens especially were 
imitated from the Italians. 

The improvement in English architecture had 
not taken place over night. In 1550, John Shute, 
who, besides being a painter and miniaturist, was 
later to write one of the earliest English treatises 
on architecture, had been sent to Italy by the Duke 
of Northumberland to study there under the best 
architects. It was not, however, until the seventeenth 
century that, with Inigo Jones, the classic style of 
Palladio found a new home in England ; but his years 
of study had been in the reign of Elizabeth. " Being 

1 Vide J. A. Gotch, Early Renaissance Architecture in En^- 
landzxidi Architecture of the Renaissance in England, for accounts 
of the subject. 

2 Hist. Ms. Coin., Report 12, Appendix IV, p. 150. 



204 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

naturally inclined," he wrote, "to study the arts of 
design, I passed into foreign parts to converse with 
the great masters thereof in Italy." The instruction 
he received was to bear its fruits in the time of James, 
but it would scarcely have been possible without the 
work of the Italians in England, in the first half of 
the sixteenth century, who prepared and smoothed 
the way, bridging over the transition between the 
Gothic and the new style of the Renaissance. 

Hardly a single Italian artist of consequence came to 
England in the reign of Elizabeth ; the few who did 
come were all of minor importance. Valerio Belli, it is 
true, the celebrated engraver of gems, is supposed to 
have visited England and to have carved many portraits 
in cameo,^ but even this is doubtful. The processes em- 
ployed in the medaUic art came, however, from Italy .^ 
The first medallic portrait of an Englishman was made 
in Venice in 1480. Although considerably later the 
art was transplanted to England, it is very unlikely I 
that either Jacopo Trezzo or Primavera, who executed 
the portraits of Mary, and Mary Queen of Scots, ever 
set foot on English soil.'^ A great number of paintings 
of all kinds, few of which have been authenticated, 1 
are ascribed to Frederick Zuccaro, who in his four I 
years' residence in England painted Elizabeth and a 
number of her courtiers. His merit as an artist was 

1 Horace Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting, p. 188. 

2 Hawkins and Franks, Medallic Illustratiotis of English 
History, p. xii. 

8 Ibid.i p. 71. 




/o/'f-y. Ji^/^?^^//,^'/y^yy/f;^ /y (2^t^J^.a^i*^^ciK 



THE ITALIANS IN ENGLAND 20$ 

very slight, and it is scarcely remarkable that his influ- 
ence was not more strongly felt. Petruccio Ubaldini, 
who has been mentioned before, was both an illumina- 
tor and painter of miniatures at the court. The Eng- 
hsh miniaturists, however, inclined rather to the French 
and Flemish schools, even where in other respects they 
felt the Italian influence. Isaac Oliver, for instance, 
one of whose drawings in the northern Italian style is 
reproduced, was quite un-Italian in his miniatures, and 
the same was true of his master, Nicholas Hilliard. 

A taste for art was slowly growing in England, 
though not much proof of this now remains.^ Sir Philip 
Hoby was counted by Titian among his friends. Con- 
stable also alluded to Raphael and Michelangelo 
in his sonnets.^ Richard Haydocke, in his well-known 
translation of Lomazzo's Aft of Painting, greatly de- 
plored the EngHsh lack of artistic feehng and the 
alleged decay of the arts, the cause of which he 
ascribed largely to the fact that the purchaser would 
not pay well for the work of art, and in consequence 
the artist would not do his best. Haydocke's effort 
was to induce a cultivated class of patrons who might 
encourage art. From his words it is evident that the 
English were then beginning to appreciate painting. 
Previously there had been but few illustrations of this. 
In the reign of Henry the Seventh, it is true, the 
Duke of Urbino had sent over as a gift to that mon- 

1 For list of contemporary English painters, vide Francis 
Meres, Palladis Tai?tia, 1598, p. 287. 

2 Vide p. 143. 



206 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

arch a small picture by Raphael^ of St. George slay- 
ing the dragon. Presents of similar nature were made 
from time to time. The Grand Duke of Tuscany, for 
instance, sent Queen Mary a miniature of the Three 
Magi.^ The zeal for collecting works of art, begun in 
Italy, had spread to England — " In which point some 
of our nobility and divers private gentlemen have very 
well acquitted themselves ; as may appear by their 
galleries, carefully furnished with the excellent monu- 
ments of sundry famous ancient masters, both Italian 
and German."® Even the native painters were appre- 
ciated ; Richard Haydocke desired " the skilful pen of 
George Vasari" to draw parallels between Enghsh 
painters and Italian, and compare Nicholas Hilliard 
" with the mild spirit of the late world's wonder, 
Raphael Urbini." 

It is significant of the interest which was beginning 
to be taken in all works of art, especially by such 
collectors as the Earl of Arundel, that a special in- 
voice of bronzes by John Bologna was not long after- 
ward sent on commission from Florence to London.'* 
Inigo Jones himself purchased works of art, when in 

1 Now at St. Petersburg. 

2 Guardaroba Medicea, Florence, filza 34. 
2 R. Haydocke, preface to Lomazzo, 1598. 

* Guardaroba Medicea, 293, p. 81. Among other subjects 
were represented a Hercules with a club in his hand (perhaps 
the one now in the print room of the Fitzwilliam Museum, 
Cambridge), a Hercules killing the Centaur, a woman with a 
ball, a figure of Fortune, a Centaur carrying away Dejanira, etc. 
In this consignment there were also several wax figures. 



THE ITALIANS IN ENGLAND 20/ 

Italy, for the Earl of Arundel and Lords Pembroke 
and Danvers. The history of the collector's zeal in 
England rightly belongs, however, to a later period 
than the age of Elizabeth. 

Ill 

The Reformation has, until recently, been regarded 
almost as an exclusively Teutonic counterpart of the 
Italian Renaissance. As a result of this, the ethical 
and religious influence of Italy has been underrated, 
even when not entirely neglected. Toward the end of 
the sixteenth century it had become almost a fashion 
for moralists to see in Italy only a centre of vice and 
corruption. Partly, perhaps, on account of the survival 
of this idea, partly through ignorance, the sterner and 
more austere aspects of Italian life were generally over- 
looked. The religious enthusiasm of a Savonarola lay 
covered by the iniquity of the Borgias. The great 
crimes of the age, and not its virtues, alone struck the 
popular eye. It would, however, be a very one-sided 
estimate of the Italian Renaissance to regard it as an age 
when only the arts and learning flourished in an atmos- 
phere of depravity. To deny the excesses committed, 
or the vice of the age, would be no less untrue than 
to blind one's eyes to its piety, which existed then, all 
the brighter, perhaps, for the evil which surrounded 
it. Too little attention has been given to the Italian 
religious influence in England, first noticeable in the 
effect of the humanist criticism of the Scriptures on 
Grocyn and Colet. The Italian reformers who found 



208 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 



their way to England in the reign of Henry the Eighth 
showed a different side of the same influence. 

Among the most eminent of these was Bernardino | 
Ochino, a Capuchin monk of Siena, considered to be 
the most eloquent preacher of his time in all Italy. 
He had gradually drifted toward an attitude of dissent 
from Rome, and in consequence had been obliged 
to seek refuge elsewhere. His love of truth, it was 
said, led him to choose suffering and exile rather than 
wealth and honors. Because he followed " the true 
gospel," he had been persecuted by Paul the Third, 
who forced him to leave Italy .^ In 1547 he went to 
England, at Cranmer's invitation. He received there 
a hearty welcome, was granted a crown pension, and 
appointed preacher of the Italian church in London. 
His presence in England attracted considerable atten- 
tion, and his sermons were often translated, being among 
the most popular theological books of the time. In 
1549, Bishop Ponet translated his Tragedy^ which had 
for its subject the rise of the papacy and contained 
a severe indictment directed against the Church 
of Rome. Ochino's sermons proved more popular, 
however, passing through several editions. The first 
appeared the year after his arrival in England, and 
was dedicated to the Duke of Somerset. In the 
address to the reader, the printer mentioned the 

1 Preface to the Sermons of Ochino^ 1548. 

^ The Tragedy by Bernardino Ochino, 1549. A remarkable 
parallel between it and Paradise Lost has been pointed out by 
Dr. Garnett. 



THE ITALIANS IN ENGLAND 209 

translations of the Scriptures, then beginning to be 
widely known. The prophets and patriarchs, it was 
said, were now familiar to all having " become English 
men. . . . God himself in our own tongue speaketh 
to us . . . and Paul being a Hebrew born hath changed 
his tongue, and is become ours, as though he had been 
bred and brought up all the days of his life amongst 
us." In consequence of the evil conditions in Eng- 
land, God had sent prophets out of strange countries. 
" Amongst the which, Bernardinus Ochinus and Petrus 
Martyr, men of great learning which are now come 
unto us." Inasmuch as Ochino's sermons had been 
preached in Italian, a selection of six were at first trans- 
lated, with the intention of publishing the others, 
should the first meet with favor. In this way, it was 
hoped, " his native tongue thereby may be made ours." 
The chief object of the sermons was to show the 
benefits of making proper use of the Scriptures to 
attain knowledge of the Deity. Their further popu- 
larity was attested by an enlarged edition, printed not 
long afterward by a different publisher. 

Another translation of Ochino's sermons ^ by Anne 
Cooke was more interesting. It was intended to show 
the spiritual side of the Italians and prove that a study 
of the language need by no means be fruitless from the 
rehgious point of view, although the object of this edi- 
tion was to make Ochino's doctrines accessible to those 
ignorant of ItaHan. To defend the book seemed, 
however, unnecessary to the translator, since the author 

1 Fourteen Sermons of Barnadine Ochyne (1550 ?). 
P 



2IO ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

lived in England — "A man whose life without words 
would be sufficient protection to his work." As late, 
indeed, as 1580 a new edition appeared of Ochino's 
sermons^ which praised the spiritual wisdom of the 
author and the "pure and perfect godUness of his 
works." 

Peter Martyr Vermigli, the friend and contemporary 
of Ochino, was born in Florence, where his father had 
been a follower of Savonarola. He himself had studied 
for eight years at Padua, and came under the influ- 
ence of the Spanish reformer, Juan de Valdes. In 
1547, with Ochino, he had been invited by Cranmer 
to come to England. Together they were placed in 
the charge of John Abell, an English merchant, who 
escorted them from Basle to London, where Peter 
Martyr lived for some time with Cranmer. He was 
given a crown pension, was soon afterward made Regius 
professor of divinity at Oxford and later appointed to 
the first canonry of Christ Church. Peter Martyr was 
one of the three persons whom Cranmer associated 
with himself in revising the ecclesiastical laws. Cran- 
mer selected him also to aid him in defending the 
Book of Common Prayer, established under Edward 
the Sixth when, at the beginning of Mary's reign, he 
challenged the Romanists to a public disputation. 
The two were on terms of cordial intimacy and 
friendship ; the archbishop made particular use of 
him in the different steps of the Reformation, and 

^ Certain Godly Sermons, translated by William Phiston, 
1580. 



THE ITALIANS IN ENGLAND 211 

whenever he could be spared from his pubhc readings 
at Oxford would send for him/ it was said, to confer on 
matters of importance. 

Peter Martyr was also a prolific writer, and many of 
his works were translated into English. While few are 
of interest to the layman, they yet show the influence 
of an Italian in shaping the course of the English 
Reformation. His Puritanism appeared, for instance, 
in his tract on the Abuse of Dancing, in which he proved 
its wickedness by the Scriptures. One of his many 
religious treatises was translated by Nicholas Udall for 
the benefit of such curates and other good people " who 
in default of sufiicient learning are unable thoroughly 
to instruct their flocks, nor to stop the mouths of ma- 
licious people, and of Papists." His most important 
writings, however, were the commentaries on the 
Scriptures ; in his great book of Commonplaces, later 
translated by Anthony Martin,- were contained his 
ideas on the subject, and many inquiries on predes- 
tination, justification by faith, and the salvation of man 
through Christ. The work was especially praised for 
reproving the errors and heresies of Rome, and its 
author was eulogized for having devoted his Hfe to 
preaching Protestantism in England. To accomplish 
this, it was said, he had left his own wealth and repose. 
His letters were also pubhshed, but contain Httle of 
general interest save his sorrows for Italy, and com- 
plaints of the penury in England "of the word of 

1 Strype, Thomas Cranmer, I, 593. 

2 The Commonplaces of rttL.r Martyr, 1583. 



212 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

God." Like his other writings, the letters were full 
of an intense zeal and a deep religious enthusiasm 
not commonly associated with the Itahans of the 
Renaissance. 

The rehgious influence Italy exerted on Protestant 
England was by no means confined to the few reform- 
ers who came over. Even then a devotional and reli- 
gious literature flourished south of the Alps which was 
known in England. Edward Courtenay, Earl of 
Devon, during his long imprisonment in the Tower, 
translated, in 1548, Aonio Paleario's book on the 
Benefit of Chrisfs Death^ a work of such extraor- 
dinary popularity in the sixteenth century that, until 
condemned by the Inquisition, it was admired 
alike by pious Catholics and those who favored the 
Reformation. 

England then became a home and refuge for Italian 
reformers, just as in the nineteenth century it was one 
for political refugees. Jacopo Calco was another Ital- 
ian theologian who came over for rehgious reasons.^ 
Giulio Terenziano, better known in England as Julius, 
followed Peter Martyr, and in later years came such 
men as Jacopo Acontio, author of Satati's Strata- 
gems^ Alessandro Cittolini^ and Giulio Borgarucci, 
who, arriving a Protestant refugee, later became court 
physician. Francesco Pucci was also one whose 

1 Trattato Utilissimo, by Antonio della Paglia, known as 
Aonio Paleario. Another English rendering of this book was 
made by Arthur Golding from its French translation. 

2 Bale, Scriptorium Illustriuvi, 1557, II, 140. 

3 Vide Roger Ascham, EpistolcB, passim. 



THE ITALIANS IN ENGLAND 213 

reforming zeal led him to London and Oxford, 
where he delivered a course of lectures in theology. 
Still another was Pietro Bizari of Perugia, an his- 
torian and poet who described himself as " an exile 
from Italy his native country by reason of his con- 
fession of the doctrine of the Gospel." Michael 
Angelo Florio, a Florentine Protestant who had come 
over to England, in addition to being a teacher of 
Italian, became, in 1550, preacher to the congregation 
of Italian Protestants in London. This had been estab- 
lished chiefly through the influence of Archbishop Cran- 
mer and Sir WiUiam Cecil. The archbishop obtained 
certain privileges for the members of the congregation, 
who were to be treated like free denizens, and given 
permission to reside and do business in London, with as 
much freedom as native-born Enghshmen. The only 
obligation they were under was to swear fidelity and 
allegiance. Other requests were granted them from 
time to time, and many joined the church for worldly 
reasons. In spite of these advantages, quite a few 
returned to the Roman semce. Florio complained of 
this to Cecil, then secretary of state, who bade him 
prepare a list of the apostates' names, which he did. 
The secretary sent for these, and informed them that, 
since they were citizens, and in consequence subject 
to English law, they ought to be punished the same as 
other Englishmen who heard the mass.^ Florio, whose 
morals were not of the best, subsequently lost the 
favor of Cecil, who had before been his friend ; 

^ Strype, Memorials^ p. 343 et seq. 



214 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

Jerome Zerlito later became the pastor of this church. 
Its existence for many years is perhaps the best proof 
of the Itahan colony in London. Roger Ascham 
alluded to it, in condemning the courtiers who went 
there to hear the language and not for the service ; 
" Italianated Englishmen," he called them,^ who were 
unable to abide the godly Italian church at home 
and attended it only to listen to the Itahan tongue 
naturally spoken. 

The Italian reformers in England prove how one- 
sided any judgment would be, which laid down abso- 
lutely the nature of the Italian influence in England, 
condemning it for the same reasons which once acted 
on moralists hke Ascham. The Italian spiritual nature, 
though less on the surface than its carnal side, was yet 
to be found by those who sought it. There were 
many besides John Colet who felt the Italian influ- 
ences of piety and austerity. 



IV 

The Italians of the Renaissance were the first mod- 
ern people to take note of the traits and characteristics 
of other nations. Beginning with Poggio and ^neas 
Sylvius, they recorded at length their impressions of 
foreign countries. During the sixteenth century a 
series of deep and accurate studies of national char- 
acter was written by the Venetian ambassadors, one of 
whose duties it was to keep their government posted 

1 Scholemaster^ p. 82. 



THE ITALIANS IN ENGLAND 21 5 

on the condition of the countries with whom they had 
diplomatic relations. This had been the custom since 
the early years of the republic. The Grand Council 
decreed, in 1268, that all Venetian ambassadors on 
their return should report in full their proceedings to 
the signory, being supplied with a clerk to write out 
the narrative. By degrees it became usual to add 
descriptions of the country visited, and these were 
often elaborated at considerable length. The Vene- 
tian reports became celebrated as models of what 
such work should be, and copies were eagerly sought 
for in other countries as well.^ 

The Italian accounts of England in the sixteenth cen- 
tury were of several different kinds. Without consider- 
ing the numerous letters containing information on 
many subjects, or the sharp but scattered impressions 
which Bruno recorded in the Siippe?' of Ashes, partial 
descriptions of England can be found in such diaries as 
that of the Milanese merchant, who travelled there in 
15 18," and in Jerome Cardan's experiences in the reign 
of Edward the Sixth ; also in Paolus Jovius' and Bote- 
ro's general histories and geographies. 

The Venetian relations, however, were by far the 
most important. Although diplomatic intercourse, cen- 
tring mainly on commercial questions, had existed for 
some time between the two states, yet Andrea Trevi- 
sani's embassy to the English court, in 1497, was really 
the first. During the sixteenth century, the Venetian 

1 Cal. St. Pap., Ven., I, xliii ei seq. 

2 Add. Ms. 24,180, Brit. Mus. 



2l6 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

ambassadors in England numbered twenty-three in all. 
Diplomatic intercourse ceased almost entirely in the 
reign of Elizabeth, owing to the religious differences.^ 

The reports of the different ambassadors have 
many elements in common. The model the writers 
employed was the same, and they saw things through 
similar eyes. At the same time the outward panorama 
was continually changing. For this reason, while each 
" relation " serves in one way to corroborate the others, 
it adds also a certain amount of fresh material. 

Almost invariably in the sixteenth century the first 
desire of any one who wished to relate the experiences 
of his travels was to preface these with a general 
account of the country he had visited. England was 
still too remote and distant a nation, and accurate 
knowledge too scarce, for its physical characteristics 
not to be of interest. This is scarcely the place, how- 
ever, to dwell on such matters. The government of 
the country, the crown revenues, parliament and judi- 
ciary can be passed over likewise, although naturally of 
the greatest interest to the signory for whose benefit 
these accounts were written. It may briefly be said 
that the liberties enjoyed by Englishmen and their 
freedom from oppressive taxes especially impressed 
the shrewd Italian observer. 

Although the English characteristics noticed would 
be too numerous to mention here, the general im- 
pression derived from reading these accounts is one 
of keen and accurate observation. The religious trans- 

1 Baschet, Diplomaiie Venitienne, p. io6. 



THE ITALIANS IN ENGLAND 21/ 

formation of the country was naturally of great interest 
to the intelligent foreigner, and one writer, at least, 
described in detail the new prayer book of 1549 which 
made use of the English language, and the new church 
ceremonies and regulations.^ England, especially in 
the first half of the sixteenth century, was passing 
through a period of transition, and the numerous 
changes of faith undergone perhaps almost justified 
one critic's remarks, that the English used religion 
merely as a cloak ; that they believed what the king 
believed, and if he were to turn Mahometan or Jew, 
they would follow suit.^ 

The great effort of the kings of Spain ever since the 
Reformation had been directed to bringing England 
back to the Roman faith, accomphshing thereby both 
a poHtical and a religious end. The military resources 
of England were consequently a matter of considerable 
interest, even to states which were neutral. For- 
eigners' opinions on English soldiers varied considera- 
bly, although certain of the traits then noticed still 
continue to hold true at the present day. 

One of the least favorable of miilitary critics was a 
certain Giovanni Sovico, who had lived many years in 
England, and gave as his opinion that ten or twelve 
thousand Spanish or Italian infantry and two thousand 
cavalry would be sufficient to restore the Catholic reli- 
gion.^ Petruccio Ubaldini, who had served in the Scotch 
war, thought it to be the general impression that if a 

1 Relazione Ubaldini, f. 93. ^ Relazione Michele, f. 22 et seq. 
8 Arch. Med. Flor., 4185, Letk?- to Father Panigarola. 



2l8 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

foreign prince were only able to land an army on Eng- 
lish soil, and win the first battle, he would encounter 
no further difficulties, since, owing to the inability of 
the people to endure fatigue, and their nature, they 
would no longer oppose him. He went on to explain 
that this was not so easy as it seemed at first sight. 
All similar attempts since the Conquest had failed, and 
William only succeeded on account of the weakness of 
the opposing army.^ Italian critics, generally, agreed 
on the English inability to withstand fatigue, and their 
need of an abundant meat diet. Without a great supply 
of food they were able to endure but little exertion.^ 
" When war was raging most furiously, they would 
look for good eating and all their other comforts 
without thinking of what harm might befall them."^ 
Although they showed great aptitude for sport, and 
readiness in times of danger, it could not be said that 
they cared much for arms. Their only opportunity to 
make use of them was in war, and once that was over 
they forgot all about them.^ Enghsh soldiers enjoyed, 
however, a high reputation, and from the fear the 
French held them in, it was believed to have been 
justly acquired.^ The critics singled out for especial 
praise the English proficiency in the use of the long 
bow.^ 

1 Ubaldini, f. S3. 

2 /did., f. 112 d. Rel. Soranzo, 1554, ed. Alberi, Ft. II, p. 53. 

3 Relation of England^ 1500, p. 22 et seq. 

4 Soranzo, p. 52. ^ Rel. of England, loc. cit. 
^ Rel. Raviglio, Ms. Siena, Libreria comunale K., X, 29, f. 64, 

and Cal. St Pap., Ven., IV, 285-2S9. 



1 



THE ITALIANS IN ENGLAND 219 

It was easily recognized that the natural strength of 
the country lay in its insular position. Long before 
the Armada, the Italians appreciated the fact that the 
strong point of the English was in naval warfare, where 
they succeeded much better and were far braver than 
on land. They placed reliance in their ships, and, 
utterly regardless of death, performed prodigies of 
valor with them. The courage of English sailors 
in their attack was wonderful, wrote another writer. 
'^ These people fight to the death ; and it is their 
habit before they sail, to swear to one another that 
they will fire the ship rather than yield themselves 
prisoners. So resolute is this race in battle." ^ This 
courage was admired in other respects as well. It was 
noticed especially that Englishmen had often been seen 
laughing while on their way to the stake or gibbet, ridi- 
cuUng, as it were, such martyrdom.^ 

To the foreign diplomatist, especially, whose glimpses 
of national life were largely obtained at court, the 
reigning prince was always a subject of great interest. 
His relatives and favorites, his accomplishments, and 
even his most trivial wishes were all mentioned.^ Sur- 
rounding Henry the Eighth, it was said, were many 
Spaniards and Italians of every profession, who in turn 
had a company of courtiers running after them, anxious 
to learn foreign languages.'' The etiquette of the court, 

1 Cal. St. Pap., Ven., IX, 239. 

2 Litolfi, Episf. cit., Cal. St. Pap., Ven., VI, 1668-73. 

3 Rel. Falier, 1531, ed. Alberi, Pt. II, p. lO et seq. 
* Cal. St. Pap., Fen., IV, 285-289. 



220 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

and the continual use of ceremonies on the sHghtest 
occasion, seemed almost ridiculous to the Italian ob- 
server. Whether the king was present or absent there 
existed the same formalities.^ It was the duty of the 
president of the royal council, the highest official in all 
England, to serve the sovereign at table.^ Ubaldini 
had seen the Princess Elizabeth kneel five times 
in succession to the king, her father, before sitting 
down. It was even customary for the children of 
Henry the Eighth to address him on bended knees. 
The daily life of Edward the Sixth was similarly 
described. Cardan, who saw the young king when 
still in his fifteenth year, wrote that he was skilled 
in seven languages. His tennis, horsemanship and 
archery were noticed, as well as the fact that his 
riding and dancing master, and many of his musicians, 
were Italians.^ The attention of later travellers centred 
naturally on Queen Elizabeth, who was to become the 
most conspicuous figure of her age. In her youth, 
report had it that she lived a life of such splendor as 
could hardly be imagined. Much of her time was 
occupied by balls and banquets, hunting, and similar 
amusements, all of which were conducted with the 
greatest possible display. She insisted, however, that 
far greater respect be shown her than the late queen 
had exacted ; and although she had summoned Par- 
liament, she gave orders that her commands be exe- 
cuted, even if contrary to its will.* 

1 Rel. Raviglio, Ms. cit., f. 70. ^ Ubaldini, f. 43 b. 

2 Ibid., f. 64. * Cal. St. Pap., Ven., VII, 659. 



THE ITALIANS IN ENGLAND 221 

Shortly after her accession, one envoy wrote regard- 
ing the HkeHhood of any foreigner ascending the 
throne. " During the last twenty years three princes 
of the blood, four dukes, forty earls, and more than 
three thousand other persons have died by violent 
death. It may therefore be easily imagined that no 
foreigner could rule this kind of people, when even 
their own countrymen are not safe. . . . Queen Eliza- 
beth, who has succeeded to the throne . . . declines to 
rely upon any one save herself, although she is most 
gracious to all." ^ Her personal appearance was often 
described as well. Even in her seventieth year, it 
was said of her that she walked straight as a rod, 
com' una canna, clad all in white.^ 

Next in interest came the nobles directly after the 
sovereign. Poggio remarked in his day that they con- 
sidered it disgraceful to live in towns, and judged the 
degree of a man's nobility by the extent of his estates. 
Their time was spent in agriculture, although they did 
not consider trading in wool and sheep to be beneath 
their dignity. He himself had known a wealthy mer- 
chant, who having invested his money in land became 
the founder of a noble race ; and had likewise seen 
admitted into the highest circles many persons of low 
birth who had been ennobled on account of their war- 
like achievements.^ Later in the sixteenth century, 
although very few of the old nobility remained, they yet 

1 Cal. St. Pap., Ven., VII, 328 ei seq. 

2 Arch. Med. Flor., 4185, July, 1599. 
* Letter of Oct. 29th, 1420. 



222 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

made use of almost royal ceremony, and were looked 
upon with nearly as much respect as the monarch him- 
self. They had their followers and retainers, who at 
their lord's command would fight even against the king. 
The people regarded them as their representatives, al- 
though the crown had often tried to break their power. 
The nobles, except when at court, lived in the country 
where they kept open house with great retinues of ser- 
vants,^ the Earl of Pembroke alone having more than 
a thousand, who were all attired in his livery. Further- 
more, there was not a lord in the land who did not 
have foreign servants and gentlemen in his service.^ 

At the end of the fifteenth century, an Italian trav- 
eller in England had noticed that the common people 
were held in but little higher regard than serfs.^ Sub- 
sequent writers did not observe this, but many petty vex- 
ations remained to indicate differences of rank. Thus, 
even fifty years later, while commoners were forbidden 
to go around at night without good reason, noblemen 
might do so.^ Another difference was that while the 
nobility were extremely polite, especially to foreigners, 
the populace were just as hostile^ The common people 
had indeed many curious habits. Toward the infirm 
they would show compassion in this way; if a man 
were given up by the physicians and there was abso- 
lutely no hope, his nearest relatives would take a pil- 
low, place it on his head, and then sit on it until he 

1 Soranzo, p. 52 et seq. * Raviglio, Ms. cit., f. 71. 

2 Ubaldini, i. wd b. ^ Soranzo, loc. cit. 
^ Rel. of England, p. 34. 



THE ITALIANS IN ENGLAND 223 

suffocated, a father doing this to his son, or a son to 
his own father ; and they did it thinking that since 
there was no chance for his recovery, it was an act of 
charity to reUeve him from his pain.^ Another trait 
noticed was that when they fought, it was usually about 
some trifle, and after having exchanged a few thrusts with 
each other in the German fashion ( Coltellate alia Te- 
desca), when one had wounded the other, they made 
peace instantly and went to drink together. They had 
not the point of honor of Italians, either as regards 
women or when the lie was given. ^ 

The freedom allowed women was very puzzling to 
the Italians, who often misinterpreted it. It was in 
striking contrast to what a former traveller had alluded 
to when he said that the EngHsh kept very jealous 
guard over their wives.^ Most writers agreed 
about the great attractiveness of English women ; 
one proclaimed that in no respect were they inferior 
to the women of Siena or any of the most esteemed 
in Italy ;^ others, too, alluded to their handsome 
presence, fine complexions and ready wit, saying that 
only at xA-Ugsburg were their equals to be seen.^ It 
was the liberty they enjoyed, however, which amazed 
the foreigners so much ; no one inquired as to what 
they did either at home or abroad, and under pretence 

1 Relazione Daniele Barbaro, Ed. Alberi, 155 1, Pt. I, p. 157. 

2 Letters of Annibale Litolfi to the Duke of Mantua, June 20, 
1557, Cal. St. Pap., Ven., VI, 1668-73. 

* Jiel. of England, p. 23. 

* Ubaldini, Ms. cit., f. 11^ b. ^ Litolfi, Epis/. cit. 



224 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

of going out for meals, they could do what they liked. 
Married women especially, either alone or with a 
female companion, would accept invitations to dine, 
not only from an Englishman but a foreigner as well. It 
was said to be the custom, after having spoken once or 
twice to any woman, on meeting her again in the street 
" to take her to a tavern where all persons go without 
any reserve, or some other place, the husband not 
taking it amiss but remaining obliged to you and always 
thanking you, and if he sees you with her he departs."^ 
Another curious custom mentioned was that if a man 
should give flowers to a lady, she had to wear them for 
three months {sic)^ when they were exchanged for 
others. 

Great surprise was shown at the alleged want of 
affection displayed by Englishmen toward their chil- 
dren ; every one, however rich, sent his children away 
into the houses of others, receiving those of strangers 
in return ; the reason given for such severity was that 
they might learn better manners ; but one traveller,^ at 
least, thought it was because they liked to enjoy all 
their comforts themselves, and that they were better 
served by strangers than they would be by their own 
children, since the English were great epicures and 
hked to indulge in the most delicate fare themselves, 
while the rest they gave to their household. The Eng- 
lish fondness for food and long dinners was a trait al- 
ways noticed by the more frugal Italians, who called 

^ Litolfi, loc. cit. 

^ Rel. of England^ p. 25. 



THE ITALIANS IN ENGLAND 22$ 

them gluttons/ and remarked that they ate five or six 
times a day.^ Many years before Poggio had dreaded, 
while in England, the meals which sometimes lasted 
four hours, where he was obliged to wash his eyes with 
cold water to keep himself awake ; ^ others, too, bore 
witness to similar conditions, and a century later this 
practice still continued, although conversation with ladies 
then accounted for part of the time spent. " The Eng- 
lish thought no greater honor could be conferred or 
received than to invite others to eat with them or to 
be invited themselves ; and they would sooner give 
five or six ducats to provide an entertainment for a 
person, than a groat to assist him in any distress." * 

A characteristic noticed was their enjoyment of com- 
fort. They loved their ease, and there was no peasant 
who did not ride on horseback ; England was even 
called the land of comforts. Among the national traits 
observed was also their desire for novelty and change,^ 
and their inconstancy, for which they were renowned in 
the sixteenth century. One day they did one thing in 
regard to religion, and the next day another.^ An 
Italian, alluding to their fondness for novelty, says of 
them that they attempted to do anything that came 
into their heads, just as if what the imagination sug- 
gested could easily be executed ; hence it was, he 
said, that a greater number of insurrections had broken 
out in England than in all the rest of the world. It 

1 Poggio, Epist., I, 43. 

2 Litolfi, Epist. cit., p. 1671. Vide Ubaldini, f. 112 b. 
8 Vespasiano, p. 420. ^ Falier, p. 26. 

* Rel. 0/ Etiglaftd, p. 22 et seq. ^ Barbaro, p. 18. 

Q 



226 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 



was perhaps on account of this that many people 
would boast of the members of their family who had 
been executed. "Lately a foreigner, having asked 
an English captain if any one of his family had been 
hanged and quartered, was answered, ' not that he knew 
of.' Another Englishman whispered to the foreigner, 
' Don't be surprised, for he is not a gentleman.' " ^ 

A certain arrogance and feeling of superiority over 
other nations was also noticed of the English. Litolfi 
remarked of it in a letter, " The man who said that 
England was a paradise inhabited by devils did not 
deceive himself"^ Long before this it was said that 
the English were great lovers of themselves and of 
everything belonging to them ; that they thought 
there were no other men as good as they were, and 
no other world but England. If they but shared some 
delicacy with a stranger they would ask him if such a 
thing was to be found in his country ; and whenever 
they saw a handsome foreigner, they would say he 
looked like an Englishman, or that it was a pity he 
was' not an EngUshman.^ They considered them- 
selves handsomer than any other nation in the world.^ 
Still another writer remarked that its inhabitants 
thought nothing existed outside England, from which 
they proceeded to such silly propositions that they 
aroused the laughter even of their own countrymen 
of better judgment.^ 

Many of the customs of the country were also 

1 Litolfi, Epist. cit. ^ /^^^^ 3 j^^i of England, p. 20. 
* Litolfi, ibid. ^ Ubaldini, Ms. cit., f. 115 <^. 



1 

i f 



THE ITALIANS IN ENGLAND 22/ 

described by the writers on the subject. The fashion 
in travelUng was for gentlemen to be followed by their 
servants, one of whom carried a valise containing his 
master's cloak, hat and a book, while the others went 
behind, bearing each a little round buckler and a 
sword. Ladies travelled on horseback preceded by 
footmen, and followed by their maids of honor, who 
were usually of noble birth. ^ 

The system of wards in chancery, a source of royal 
revenue, by which the crown administered the estates 
of orphans, and enjoyed the income until their com- 
ing of age, was described. The king enriched his 
retainers by giving them wealthy wards in marriage, 
to whom, if rejected, they were obliged to pay a 
year's revenues. Matches were often purposely pro- 
posed, so that they might be refused, in order to gain 
this money for the favorite of either sex.- Women, it 
was noticed, were given but small dowries. Many 
houses, however, such as the Arundels, had been en- 
riched through the female Hne, the reason for this 
being that, on a man's marriage, one-third of his estate 
was settled on his wife, and in case of her remaining 
a widow she could dispose of it as she liked, if there 
were no children. The king, therefore, would often 
try to marry one of his courtiers to a rich widow, and, 
in case she refused her consent, he could seize her 
estate pretending it was his intention to unite it to 
another's. For fear of this many widows married 
almost immediately after their husband's death.*'' 

1 Litolfi, Epist. cit. - Ravi-lio, f. 62. 3 Rel. Michele, f. 28. 



228 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

It was said of the English that they were gifted 
with good understandings, and quick at anything 
they applied their mind to. In the beginning of the 
sixteenth century it was noticed that few except 
the clergy were given to study ; later, however, one 
writer remarked that many of the women, and above I 
all the nobility, were very learned in the classics. One 
curious bit of advice given by Ubaldini to his com- 
patriots was for them to be careful not to offend 
Englishmen by a flat contradiction, but little by little to 
show them the truth, which they would then recog- 



nize.^ 



1 Ms. cit., f. 1 1 6. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE ITALIAN MERCHANT IN ENGLAND 



The condition of commerce in England, through 
the long period of the Middle Ages, was in striking 
contrast to its importance in Italy. One country had 
remained to a great extent an agricultural community, 
the chief export of which was wool ; the other, situated 
midway between Western Europe and the East, had 
developed a commercial life in its city republics far in 
advance of what was then known elsewhere. Coin- 
ciding with the first development of the Renais- 
sance, there came a great expansion of trade. Long 
before this, however, the Venetians and Genoese in the 
Orient, and the Italian merchants in Western Europe, 
made of their country a central point in the com- 
merce of the world. At a time when all the rest of 
Europe was still deep in the Middle Ages, the Italian 
city communities had realized the benefits which were 
to be derived from trade. A rapid accumulation of 
wealth followed the success of their undertakings. 
They were the first who introduced commercial life 
and ideas into the countries of Western Europe, 
teaching them banking and a knowledge of financial 

229 



230 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

affairs. In commerce, as in literature and the arts, 
Italy led the way for the rest of Europe to follow. 

In the great fairs that were held in Champagne, in 
the early Middle Ages, the Italian merchants had taken 
a prominent part. They had then gradually branched 
out, first going to Flanders, and then crossing the 
channel to England. They came over, hkewise, in the 
trains of the Roman prelates sent to foreign countries, 
acting as their business men and bankers, and often 
too as the papal collectors of revenue. 

Commercial relations of one nature or another had 
existed between Italy and England from very early 
times. Thus Otto degli Gherardini, a rich Florentine, 
was in England toward the end of the eleventh cen- 
tury, and acquired much landed property; his son, 
Walter Fitz Otto, became castellan of Windsor. A 
little later King John carried on negotiations with the 
Mercatores Tuscie, as they were then called, and even 
forbade them at one time to do business in England,^ 
although he granted commercial privileges to a Vene- 
tian. On another occasion the great Florentine family 
of Bardi became impoverished, through having lent 
money to Prince Henry, the son of Henry the Second, 
which was never repaid. The Italian merchants, how- 
ever, who had come over to England prior to 1229, 
were the exception, rather than the rule. In that 
year Master Stephen, chaplain and nuncio of the 
Pope, who had been charged to collect the tithes to 

1 Vide Davidsohn, Geschichie von Florenz, I, 798. Gold- 
schmidt, Universal Geschichie des Handelsrechts, I, 186. 



THE ITALIAN MERCHANT IN ENGLAND 23 1 

pay the expenses of the war which was to be waged 
against Frederick the Second, appeared with several 
of them in his retinue, who engaged in business under 
the papal protection.^ The Pope, moreover, induced 
the unwary Henry the Third to accept for his second 
son, Edmund, the crown of Sicily. As security for the 
payment of the money he had expended, the Pope 
obtained a hold on English religious houses, and, in 
order to administer his affairs, numerous Italians were 
sent over. In the meantime more and more English 
money flowed into Sicily, till, at last, the barons, exas- 
perated, rose in revolt to depose the king, while the 
Pope deprived the son of the empty title which had 
proved so ruinous to his father.^ 

The first half of the fourteenth century was a period 
of great commercial prosperity for the merchants and 
traders of Italy. The Italian bankers who accom- 
panied the collectors of the papal tithes attended to 
forwarding, to the Curia, the sums they collected. 
From this time the names of Florentine, Sienese and 
Luccan bankers and money lenders appear on the 
English rolls, and in Italy, it was said, whoever had 
any ready money at his disposal became at once a 
banker.^ The Italian merchants in England prospered 
greatly, and in very few years extended their enter- 
prises throughout the kingdom j"* the king and the 

1 Matthew Paris, Chronica, IV, 410. 

2 Archaologia, XXVIII, 237. 

3 Vide F. Patetta in Bollettino Senese di Storia Patria, IV, 
320 et uq. * Matthew Paris, op. cit., Ill, 328 et seq. 



232 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

clergy especially were in their debt for enormous 
amounts. 

In 1240, a royal edict was issued expelling 
foreign merchants ^ on the ground of their iniquitous 
usury, but many of them managed to escape this de- 
cree by bribery. Some eleven years later, when they 
had once more settled comfortably in London, and 
were living under papal protection in the finest houses 
of the city, the king, perhaps because in need of money 
which they were unwilling to supply, accused them of 
being heretics and guilty of lese majesty. They were 
charged with contaminating England by their usury, 
as well as with offending the royal conscience by prac- 
tices which were contrary to the precepts of the 
church ; but this persecution ended, like others, in 
the payment of money.^ 

In spite of the many risks involved, England 
offered a profitable field for the enterprise of Italian 
bankers and merchants, and it is not surprising to 
find many of them, as, for instance, the Salimbeni 
family of Siena, returning to their native city and 
purchasing castles and estates in the neighborhood. 
In 1262, however, the Pope issued a bull against the 
Sienese, declaring them excommunicate, and further- 
more decreeing that no debts be paid them until they 
had made their peace with the church.^ Exceptions 
were soon made to this edict, and before long the 
Sienese were once again under the papal protection, 

1 Matthew Paris, op. cit., IV, 8. ^ Patetta, op. cit., p. 331. 
3 Ibid.j p. 340. 



THE ITALIAN MERCHANT IN ENGLAND 233 

although in the meantime they had suffered con- 
siderably. An incident which occurred about this 
time illustrates at once the jealousy which existed 
between the merchants of the different Italian cities, 
and the declining power of the Sienese as com- 
pared to the Florentines. Henry the Third, at the 
instigation of the latter, had expelled from England 
all Sienese bankers and merchants, who in conse- 
quence addressed a letter^ to the king's brother, 
Richard, Duke of Cornwall, the newly elected emperor 
of the Holy Roman Empire, requesting his protection 
and defaming the Florentines as the enemies of man- 
kind. From 1260 the Sienese yielded the palm to 
their rivals, who assumed the mastership. The Flor- 
entines long preserved the lead they had won. In 
1375 Gregory the Eleventh issued his bull in which he 
declared them excommunicate. William Courtenay, 
Archbishop of Canterbury, published it in England, 
whereupon the Londoners pillaged the houses of all 
Florentine merchants. The king, in consequence of 
this, took them under his protection, and obtained 
thereby large sums of money, while on the other hand the 
archbishop was summoned to answer for his conduct. 
The Italians at first had been merely trading mer- 
chants or agents of the Pope. They were, as a rule, 
members of established companies doing business in 
common. Thus, under Edward the First, there were 
four such companies of Sienese merchants known as 
campso7-es Papce. As papal agents they had to remit 

1 Donati, Boll. Stor. Pat. Sen., V, 257. 



234 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

yearly to Rome one-tenth of the profits on ecclesiasti- 
cal property. The king's connivance in this was often 
purchased by allowing him a share as well.^ The 
Pope, moreover, was at first their protector, and inter- 
ceded with the king in their behalf in case of trouble. 
Already before the end of Henry the Third's reign the 
ItaHans had obtained a firm footing in England. The 
facilities they enjoyed enabled them to issue letters of 
credit to ambassadors,^ and bills of exchange were 
probably sold only by them. They also forwarded 
the money necessary to conduct the many English 
ecclesiastical lawsuits and cases, which were continu- 
ally being pleaded in Rome.^ In England, on the 
other hand, they purchased wool; the returns still 
exist of the quantity of wool in the possession of ten 
different companies of Italian merchants in the reign 
of Edward the First."* At a time, moreover, when it 
was extremely difficult to raise money on credit, princes 
like Henry the Third and the first three Edwards 
made use of their resources. Under Edward the First 
they enjoyed close connection with the throne, and 
the merchants of Lucca even remitted him from Eng- 
land the necessary sums for his expenses in Palestine,"^ 
and kept him informed of what went on at home. 
Later, when he became king, he fostered their trade 
and induced them to come over in considerable num- 
bers, obtaining readily from them the money he could 
find nowhere else. Interest was rarely promised in the 

1 Arch., XXVIII, 214 et seq. "^ Ibid., p. 218. 

8 Ibid. * Ibid., p. 220. ^ n,id., p, 241. 



THE ITALIAN MERCHANT IN ENGLAND 235 

royal loans from Italians, for interest meant usury, and 
usurers were liable to be treated as heretics ; but 
charges of usury were often avoided by making loans 
gratuitous for a period. Instead of interest an addi- 
tional amount was usually given as compensation for 
any losses or expenses incurred. Thus ^^ 10,000 was 
granted by Edward the First to the Frescobaldi of 
Florence^ to reimburse them for the losses they had 
suffered, and similar premiums were often given. 
Later, however, as loans grew larger, interest began 
to be paid. Edward the Third, for instance, was 
obliged to grant it on 140,000 florins he had borrowed 
from a merchant of Lucca, and engage himself fur- 
thermore not to cross the seas until the sum advanced 
had been repaid. Security for loans was usually given 
by an assignment of a portion of the royal revenue 
for the amount received. Edward the Third sur- 
rendered all the customs of the kingdom for one year 
to the Bardi of Florence, who had undertaken to 
provide 1000 florins every month for the expenses 
of the royal household.^ Often the great noblemen 
and sometimes the Italian merchants themselves would 
become the king's securities to other companies of 
their countrymen for sums advanced ; Lord Derby 
was even confined in France for debts in which he 
had been the king's security, until he was released by 
the company of Leopardi who advanced the required 
sum.^ Under Edward the First all the revenues of 
Ireland were assigned to the Frescobaldi in payment 

^ Vide Arch., p. 229, 2 //,/^., p. 230. ^ Ibid. 



236 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

of a loan of ;^i 1,000 j^ for in Ireland the Italians 
were hardly less active than in England. The customs 
indeed came more often into their hands than into 
the royal treasury during the latter part of the first 
Edward's reign, and in the early years of Edward the 
Second all its receipts were made over to them.^ 

Another source of remuneration was obtained by 
means of the various commercial privileges granted 
them. If it had not been for the king's good will, 
the Itahans could scarcely have been able to pursue 
their undertakings. By an ancient custom they were 
obliged to dispose of their cargo within forty days 
after landing, and so-called hosts were awarded them 
to watch and report on their dealings ; but almost the 
only notices which occur of these restraints are in 
the petitions of English merchants regarding their 
infringement.^ The offices to which they were ap- 
pointed were another source of profit ; they were 
often collectors of subsidies and customs, and the mint 
was generally in their charge, the coiners being prin- 
cipally Italians. But they held positions of greater 
trust as well ; Amerigo de Frescobaldi was constable 
of Bordeaux under Edward the Second, and Alberto 
de' Medici was justice of the Jews of Agenois at the 
same time.^ They seem also to have acted as royal 
agents and emissaries in foreign parts ; under the 
second and third Edwards, Antonio Pessagno and 
Antonio Bache, merchants of Genoa, were frequently 

1 Arch., p. 290. ^ Ibid., p. 232 ei seq. 

2 Ibid.f p. 231. * Ibid.y p. 233. 



THE ITALIAN MERCHANT IN ENGLAND 237 

engaged abroad in the king's affairs.^ The favor they 
enjoyed in England can be seen also in royal letters 
recommending them to the Pope and the king of 
France. The natural talents of the Itahans fitted 
them peculiarly for all diplomatic work ; as an illus- 
tration of this, it was said that, in 1244, there were 
no less than twelve Florentines at the Vatican acting 
as ambassadors from the different states of Europe.^ 

The great success enjoyed by the Italian merchants 
and money lenders in England roused native jealousy 
and hatred. At the death of Edward the First, the 
Frescobaldis alone obtained ;£5 6,500 out of his estate 
of ;!^i 18,000, and much of the remainder went to pay 
other Italian creditors.^ In the statutes of the Barons 
in the time of Edward the Second, several articles 
were directed especially against them : thus the cus- 
toms were no longer to be trusted to aliens, and all who 
had received profits from them were to be arrested 
with their goods, and obliged to render account of 
their receipts. Amerigo de Frescobaldi, then con- 
stable of Bordeaux, was made a particular object of 
persecution in a special article directed against him. 
These measures checked the Italian money lenders for 
a time, and most of their loans after that were made 
to rehgious houses and private individuals,^ with whom 
dealings were safer. 

The greatest blow of all was to be received in 

^ Arch., p, 234. 

^ Delle eccelenze . . . della Jtazione Fiorentina, p. 18. 

* Arch., p. 249 et seq. * Ibid., p. 257. 



238 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

the reign of Edward the Third. The Bardi and 
Peruzzi of Florence had assisted that monarch to the 
full extent of their capital, and it was their money alone 
which enabled him to financier and carry on his wars 
with France. In spite of the successful ending of this 
war, the payment of the sums they had lent was con- 
stantly deferred. Although all the royal revenue and 
wool passed into their hands, yet their outlays were so 
much greater that, when the war was over, it was found 
that the king owed the Bardi 100,000 and the Peruzzi 
over 135,000 marks sterling. Much of this was not 
their own, but had been borrowed or received in trust 
from citizens and strangers. Unable finally to meet their 
obligations, they lost their credit and became bankrupt. 
In consequence of this, Florence received a great 
shock, and its wealth was perceptibly diminished, "for 
the Bardi and Peruzzi Jiad held so large a share of the 
commerce of Christendom that upon their fall every 
other merchant was suspected and distrusted."^ 

In the beginning of the fourteenth century the 
Venetians began to make their appearance in Eng- 
land, coming over in their " Flanders Galleys," which 
were long the connecting link between the two states.^ 
The first voyage made to the Low Countries was in 1 3 1 7, 
and the first Venetian diplomatic agent, Gabriel Dan- 
dolo, captain of the galleys,^ was also sent to England 
on this occasion. From that time on, some of the ves- 

1 Villani, Cronica, Bk. XII, ch. LV. 

2 Cal. St. Pap., Ven., I, Ixi. 
^ Ibid., 1, cxxii. 



THE ITALIAN MERCHANT IN ENGLAND 239 

sels were regularly diverted to Southampton, whither 
they carried the products of the East and brought back 
in return cloth and wool. 

The English kings found, however, another use for 
the galleys. In 1340 Edward the Third wrote to the 
Doge of Venice,^ requesting the hire of forty or more 
vessels for one year, to assist him in his war against 
France, and asked him furthermore to urge the Doge 
of Genoa not to give any subsidy to Philip of Valois. 
Characteristic of the chivalrous English monarch was 
his letter to the Doge in which he wrote that, in order 
to avoid further bloodshed, he had defied Philip either 
in single combat or with an equal number of knights, 
and had also challenged him to prove his kingship by 
placing himself in a lion's den, since in case he were 
a true king they would do him no harm. In his letter 
to the Doge, Edward likewise offered to place the 
Venetians in England on an equal footing with his own 
subjects, and requested that one or both of the Doge's 
sons be sent him to be educated at the English court, 
promising to confer on them every honor, including 
knighthood. 

For two hundred years Southampton was the centre 
of Italian trade with England.- In 1379 a Genoese 
merchant who had promised the king^ to make it 
the great port of Western Europe was assassinated by 
the merchants of London, for the English traders 

1 Cal. St. Pap., Ven., I, 8. 

2 Mrs. J. R. Green, Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, II, 
290. ^ Ibid., II, 293. 



240 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

were extremely jealous of the Italians. The republic 
of Genoa, on another occasion, had made complaints 
of the depredations on its commerce by English priva- 
teers, and, as the outcome of this, in 13 71, it ratified 
a treaty of commerce with England. The next year 
Geoffrey Chaucer was joined in a commission with two 
Genoese, James Pronan and John de Mari, to treat 
regarding the selection of a place on the English coast 
where the Genoese might locate a commercial estab- 
lishment. 

The English merchants, however, were bitterly hos- 
tile. They proposed a bill in Parliament to forbid the 
Venetians carrying any wares except those of their 
own manufacture, the effect of which would have been 
to destroy Venetian trade with England ; and advo- 
cated another law forbidding sales of any kind to the 
Genoese, or even carrying anything to their port,^ 
while an act of Parhament of 1439, still in force at 
the time of Polydore Vergil, prohibited strangers from 
selling merchandise to others than Englishmen, so that 
they should not get all the trade. This jealousy, how- 
ever, was to some extent natural, as the carrying trade 
of England was then largely in the hands of the 
Italians ; the Florentine society of the Alberti, for 
instance, carried all the wool from Southampton to 
Gascony.^ Enough has been said to give some idea 
of the extent of the commercial relations existing in 
the Middle Ages between the two countries. The oft- 
cited name of Lombard Street still bears witness to 

1 Mrs. J. R. Green, op. cit., I, 1 16. ^ /^^v., II, 290. 



THE ITALIAN MERCHANT IN ENGLAND 24 1 

the time when the business of banking and exchange 
was in the hands of the Itahans. The free commer- 
cial Hfe of their city repubhcs, their large shipping, 
their commanding position, situated between the Orient 
and Western Europe, all helped to make them the 
dominant factor in the trade of the Middle Ages. 
Long before the rest of Europe had awakened from 
its feudal dreams and the impracticable ideals of the 
age, the Italians had reahzed the benefits that were to 
be attained through commerce. Their success stirred 
the jealousy and hatred of the nations with whom they 
traded. But royal protection and court favor stood 
them in good stead, while those who were loudest in 
denouncing them learned the lessons which they taught. 



II 

No sudden transition separated the history of Italian 
commerce in the Renaissance from its course in the 
Middle Ages. Commercial development, although 
perhaps not quite orderly in its growth, yet remained 
constant. It is for this reason that the fifteenth century 
does not bear the same significance in its relation to 
Italian commerce in England as it did in the introduc- 
tion of humanism. At the same time its end marked 
hkewise the end of a certain stage in the commercial 
relations between England and Italy, when Italians no 
longer looked upon England as a country to be merely 
exploited, but as a land in which they could settle, 
acquire citizenship and justly take pride. 



242 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

It may be of interest to enter into the composition 
of an Italian banking house in London in the fifteenth 
century; to show the manner in which such a firm 
was estabhshed, the arrangements made between the 
partners, regarding their shares of the profits, the 
capital which was to be put in by each, and study 
the details of management, the risks to be under- 
taken, the insurance to be paid on the shipping, and 
the penalties for violation of rules ; the whole organi- 
zation, in a word, of a commercial firm in the fifteenth 
century. 

A typical instance can be found in the contract 
drawn up on May 31, 1446, between Cosimo de' 
Medici and Giovanni Benci on one hand, and Gierozo 
de Pigli on the other, for the purpose of carrying 
on a business in the city of London.^ The arrange- 
ment made was for Gierozo de Pigli, a young man 
with a limited capital, to be sent to England on a 
four years' contract to engage in a business of ex- 
change and general merchandise. The capital of the 
company was to be ;^25oo sterling, of which Cosimo 
and Giovanni were to supply ;^2i66-|, and Gierozo the 
balance, all of which was to be accounted for by the 
first day of November. In case any money had not 
been paid in by that time, twelve per cent interest was 
to be charged on it. The said Gierozo was to go to 
London and there manage in person the affairs of the 
firm, nor was he to leave that city without writing for 

^ Carteggio Mediceo avanti il Principato, filza 94, Mss. 
Archives Florence. 



THE ITALIAN MERCHANT IN ENGLAND 243 

permission from his partners, except to go to South- 
ampton or elsewhere in England on the firm's busi- 
ness. If he went anywhere without consent, it was at 
his own peril and expense, while otherwise the com- 
pany assumed it. 

Cosimo and Giovanni were each to get two-fifths 
of the profits, and Gierozo the other fifth ; and the 
same arrangement was to hold good in case of loss, 
*' which God forbid ! " Nor were the profits to be 
removed from the business for the entire term of the 
agreement. Cosimo and Giovanni together, or even 
Cosimo alone, had, however, the privilege of termi- 
nating the four years' contract earher in case they 
should see fit. Gierozo was to be allowed ;£33 los. 
a year for necessary expenses. By the terms of the 
agreement, moreover, Gierozo was not to lend or give 
credit in any way to any S/gnori, but only to lend 
money to merchants and craftsmen of good reputa- 
tion and credit. Since, however, it was often neces- 
sary to sell Roman exchange on credit to churchmen 
and pilgrims, and Venetian to knights of Rhodes and 
other gentlemen and pilgrims, and furthermore on ac- 
count of favors at the court it was sometimes necessary 
to allow credit in different ways, he was to exercise his 
own judgment and discretion in all such matters, only 
securing himself sufficiently to cover risks. 

Gierozo, moreover, was instructed not to purchase 
more than ^^500 worth of wool or cloth without the 
permission of Cosimo and Giovanni. He was not to 
forward cargo of a greater value than fifteen hundred 



244 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

ducats on Florentine and Venetian galleys ; on any 
larger amount shipped he should obtain insurance. 
He was also to do this if the merchandise was sent 
on ships of any other nationality, otherwise it was to be 
at his own risk ; moreover, he was not to insure any 
one else, except for his own personal account. He 
had to pledge himself not to engage, either directly 
or indirectly, during the length of this contract, in 
any other mercantile or exchange business without 
having first asked the permission of Cosimo and 
Giovanni and obtained it in writing from them; and 
if at any time he should violate this agreement, he 
was to pay a penalty of five hundred florins for each 
offence. He had also to promise not to gamble or 
play at dice ; in case he did so, any winnings of over 
ten ducats were to go to the company, while any 
losses were to be out of his own pocket. Moreover, 
any gifts he might receive of over ten ducats in value 
were to be the property of the company. 

Gierozo was to remit his balance sheets and ac- 
counts to Florence at least once a year, and at any 
other time Cosimo and Giovanni might demand. He 
was not to negotiate business of importance with any 
other firm without having previously consulted them. 
Nor was he to export gold from England or do any- 
thing else against the laws of the kingdom without 
first obtaining the permission of Cosimo and Giovanni, 
nor involve the firm in any way directly or indirectly 
under penalty of five hundred ducats for each 
offence. 



THE ITALIAN MERCHANT IN ENGLAND 245 

The details of what was to happen at the expiration 
of the contract, before anything new could be un- 
dertaken, were also given. Unless the agreement 
were renewed, the signers bound themselves to settle 
the affairs of the old firm, and wind up the business, 
even if Gierozo should be obliged to remain in Eng- 
land an additional six months at the expense of the 
company. The house in London as well as all the 
books of the firm were to belong to Cosimo and Gio- 
vanni, but Gierozo was to have access to the latter. 
All the creditors then unpaid, as well as the money 
left to pay them, were to be looked after by the two 
senior partners. 

The above articles Cosimo, Giovanni and Gierozo 
solemnly bound themselves to follow and observe, 
submitting any difficulties which might arise before 
the court of the Mercanzia in Florence, or any other 
court, either in England, at Bruges, or elsewhere ; in 
recognition whereof they signed the agreement, 
promising faithfully to obey it. 

A second document in the same series^ contains 
the instructions given the same day the contract was 
drawn, by Cosimo de' Medici and Giovanni Benci to 
the said Gierozo, on his setting out to take charge of 
the new firm in London. He was advised with regard 
to his relations with other Italian merchants, and in- 
structed further as to the nature of the loans he 
should make, and the exchange he was to give. On 

1 Carte^gio Mediceo avanti il PrincipatOy filza 94, Archives 
Florence. 



246 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

account of his youth he was warned first of all to be 
careful of himself and also of the company he kept. 
His journey was also mapped out beforehand ; in his 
partners' judgment it seemed best for him to travel by 
way of Milan and Geneva, through Burgundy to Bruges, 
and then on to London. He was given a letter of 
introduction to be presented in Milan to Alexander 
Castagniolo, who would give him further advice or aid if 
any were necessary, as well as furnish him with money, 
which he could also obtain at Geneva. He was told 
at the outset the amount of credit he could give cer- 
tain firms, whose reputation had been good in the 
younger days of Cosimo and was still unchanged. In 
Milan he would be able to acquaint himself about 
other concerns. The next stopping place on the 
journey was Geneva, where he could stay at their own 
house, for the Medici possessed branch houses in many 
different cities. He was instructed to stir up the young 
men who conducted the firm's affairs in that city to do 
their best, and if necessary to advise them himself, as 
the head of that branch was absent on business ; the 
youngsters, it was said, would obey any advice he saw 
fit to give them. Bruges was the next town where he 
could stay at the company's house ; he was to urge the 
two agents, Simone Nori and Tomaso Portinari, to do 
their utmost, in order that they might give an account 
of themselves and of what they really were doing. He 
should report on this, as well as what his opinion of them 
really was ; in the meantime Cosimo and Giovanni 
would write Nori to obey him and follow his instructions. 



THE ITALIAN MERCHANT IN ENGLAND 247 

Arrived in London, he was told to occupy the same 
house he had taken there two years before, and make 
all necessary business arrangements in the name of the 
company. He had also a letter of introduction to a 
certain Angelo Tani ; Tani was his subordinate, and 
to be directed by him as to what he should do ; in 
the opinion of Cosimo he was best fitted to keep the 
accounts and attend to all the correspondence. Gerard 
Canigiani, another member of the firm, would probably 
be of most use behind the counter, while yet another 
who had learned English would do elsewhere ; power 
was given him to dispose of them all as he saw fit. He 
was cautioned not to permit exchange or credit to be 
allowed nor loans made without his permission. In 
the places where the Medici and Benci had branches 
he was to do business with their houses and no others ; 
at Bruges, for instance, they felt sure he could do better 
with Simone Nori than with any one else, and they 
thought he would be able to transact some profitable 
affairs with his assistance. In such places where they 
had no branch houses he was to select the best 
merchants, and be very careful to act in all honor 
toward those who treated him well. He would have 
to ship wool and cloth to the value of one thousand 
or fifteen hundred florins to the different houses of 
Medici in Rome, Florence, and Venice, the Benci in 
Geneva, and other allied firms at Avignon and Pisa, 
and he was to attend to any orders they might send 
him. Many firms as soon as they had heard of this 
new concern in London would forward goods on con- 



248 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

signment. For this reason he was advised, at the out- 
set, with whom he should do business. At Naples, for 
instance, there was no one of sufficiently good stand- 
ing for him to have dealings with; at Rome were the 
Pazzi, whose credit was of the best ; several other 
firms, too, were mentioned where a limit of fifteen 
hundred florins' credit was set down. In Florence 
there were also good concerns, such as the Serristori 
and the Rucellai. Cosimo confessed his ignorance of 
mercantile houses in Venice, and advised him to be 
very cautious and conservative in dealing with them, 
but he mentioned houses of good standing at Genoa 
and Avignon, Barcelona and Valencia. He warned 
Gierozo always to be on his guard and not pay more 
than merchandise was worth ; nor remit money or 
exchange to any Genoese or Venetian merchants with- 
out special permission. He was to have no business 
relations with either Brittany or Gascony ; but in case 
good wines should be sent him on consignment, he 
could keep them so long as it was not a matter of 
any importance. It was also thought best for him 
to have nothing to do with Catalan merchants. Re- 
garding English traders who did business in the fairs 
of Flanders, he must exercise his own judgment and 
discretion. 

Cosimo and Giovanni hoped he would enjoy the 
favor of the king and queen ; in case he should find 
need for any letters of recommendation from King 
R6n^ [of Provence, father of Margaret, the wife of 
Henry the Sixth], if he would let them know, they 



THE ITALIAN MERCHANT IN ENGLAND 249 

would send them to him very quickly. In London 
he was to have the direction of the entire concern, 
and the younger men were to follow his instructions 
and look up to him as their chief. 

Ill 

The animosity felt by the populace against the 
Italian merchants was difficult to overcome, and their 
very success in commerce only served to increase this 
hatred. The English dislike of everything foreign was 
long characteristic of the nation, and Voltaire himself 
was hooted and chased by a London mob for no other 
reason than being a foreigner. In earlier centuries 
popular indignation at the success of aliens took more 
violent forms in the frequent riots against them, when 
the king was obliged to take them under his protec- 
tion. This hostility to all foreigners was well known 
on the continent. Itahan gentlemen had asked its 
meaning of William Thomas,^ who replied that it had 
existed at a time when there was no foreign com- 
merce in England, and when ignorant people, seeing 
strangers resort thither for purposes of trade, imag- 
ined that they went there, not to buy commodities 
but to rob them, and that foreigners unable to make a 
living in their own country came to England to plun- 
der the natives. But all that was a thing of the past, 
continued Thomas. Later travellers, however, did not 
cease to complain of the discourtesy shown them by 
the populace. Long before Thomas' day there had 

1 Piigrim, p. 6. 



250 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

been numerous complaints, and at Southampton 
there were frequent fights between Italians and Eng- 
lish.i An Italian who travelled in England about the 
year 1500 noticed the general antipathy to foreigners, 
who were supposed, he said, never to go there but to 
make themselves masters of it and usurp English 
goods; 2 and a Milanese traveller in 15 16 com- 
mented likewise on the hostility to strangers.^ 

Vexatious acts had several times already been 
aimed against them in Parliament. In 1455, however, 
a law was passed forbidding Italian merchants to 
buy wools or wool cloth of the producers in the 
country, or anywhere except in the cities of London, 
Southampton and Sandwich.* The disturbances 
leading up to this had begun some years earlier. 
Wool had frequently been seized on Venetian galleys, 
and the Doge had remonstrated on account of this, as 
well as about injurious trade regulations.^ Many annoy- 
ances were suffered by Florentine merchants as well, 
and former favors were now refused, on account of an 
EngHshman in the royal service who had some un- 
settled claims in Florence. The Florentines there- 
fore came together, and selected, as their ambassador 
to the king, Bindo da Staggio, who was to request him 
to renew the safe-conducts and again allow the Floren- 

1 Cal St. Pap., Ven., I, 5. 

2 Relation of E^tgland, p. 21 et seq. 
8 Add. Ms. 24,180, Brit. Mus., f. 29. 

4 Mrs. J. R. Green, op. cit., II, 293. 

5 Beckynton, II, 126. 



THE ITALIAN MERCHANT IN ENGLAND 25 1 

tines to purchase English wool.^ To procure these 
favors required a considerable sum of money, and they 
voted to allow Bindo five hundred and fifty ducats a 
year for eight years ; the cost of this was to be borne 
by the galleys trading between England and Tuscany, 
which were to pay a tax of one-half per cent in value 
of the merchandise they carried. Any one violating 
this agreement was to be fined five hundred florins. 
All difficulties were to be submitted to the consuls of 
the sea, whose duty it was to supervise the maritime 
trade. A further tax of the same amount was also im- 
posed on the merchandise carried by the galleys, in 
order to pay off an English claim of forty-four hun- 
dred ducats, which had been the alleged cause of the 
annoyances suffered by the Florentines in London. 
Additional' precautions were taken against possible 
fraud, and further penalties assigned for violation of 
the rules, the jurisdiction on all similar matters being 
placed under the general direction of the consuls of 
the sea. From these taxes, moreover, the expenses 
of any Florentine who had been arrested in England 
in consequence of th" reprisals were to be paid pro- 
vided the costs did not exceed five hundred florins. 
It was also agreed that a syndic, or official, should be 
selected in Florence, who was to have jurisdiction 
over all Florentines residing in England, in order that 
they might be properly organized. The two chosen for 
this were Francesco Strozzi and Gierozo de Pigli, both 

1 Fiha Strozziana, Archives Florence, 294 Cte,, 135-136, 
31st August 1448. 



252 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

at that time residing in London, who were to arrange 
between themselves who should begin and who finish 
the term. In the Middle Ages the consul had been 
a magistrate elected by a colony of merchants at a 
foreign port to watch over their interests and govern 
them, being paid in fees fixed by the merchants 
themselves. The two before mentioned were thus 
the first consuls of the Florentine colony in London. 
Adversity was perhaps the cause which forced the 
other " nations " to organize in similar manner and 
plan measures of self- protection. In 1456 a popular 
riot drove the Italian merchants out of London, to 
seek refuge elsewhere. In consequence of this a 
mutual agreement was signed by the Florentines, 
Venetians, Genoese and Luccans residing there, in 
which they pledged themselves to remain away from 
London and have no business relations with any one 
in that city for the term of three years. The docu- 
ment itself will repay a closer examination.^ 

In the name of the Almighty, of the Most Holy 
Virgin, and the entire celestial court of Paradise, it 
began, the delegates representing the merchants of 
Venice, Genoa, Florence and Lucca, residing in Lon- 
don, bind other traders of their respective nations to 
observe the terms of the agreement here signed 
under a penalty of ;£200 sterling, which fine is to 
be inflicted by the consuls of his nation on any 
merchant breaking the agreement. And furthermore, 

1 Filza Sirozziana, Archives Florence, 294 Cte., 138, 139, 
22d June 1457. 



THE ITALIAN MERCHANT IN ENGLAND 253 

in case the said consuls should neglect to enforce it, 
they themselves shall be held responsible and fined 
a like amount. In addition, the said merchants agree 
to leave London with all their possessions within six 
months (unless some good reason such as severe ill- 
ness or imprisonment shall prevent them from so 
doing), and go to the city of Winchester, or any other 
place in the island, not within a radius of thirty miles 
from London. Those merchants only might stay who 
had wine or similar articles on hand, provided that on 
expiration of the six months they gave notice to their 
consuls, swearing that only such merchandise and no 
other was still for sale. But no merchant could import 
further goods from the first of July, eight days after the 
agreement had been signed, nor was he to receive any 
either directly or indirectly. After the first of January, 
which was six months from date, no business relations 
of any kind were to be conducted with any one in 
London, nor was exchange to be bought or sold there. 
Special provision was made, however, for goods shipped 
by way of Zealand which might be in transit at that 
time. 

The signers furthermore bound themselves to do 
their best to dissuade all Italian, Sicilian, Catalan, 
or Spanish merchants from doing business either of 
money lending, importing, selling merchandise or 
exchange, or of any nature whatever, in London, dur- 
ing the same period, and in case they failed in this, 
such merchant was to be discriminated against by the 
rest and boycotted in every way possible, even to 



254 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

the extent of refusing to carry his goods in their ships. 
The same merchants signing this agreement were also 
to write to their respective governments requesting 
them to ratify the articles, and by inflicting suitable 
penalties see to it that they were observed by others of 
their community. This was acceded to very promptly, 
by the Venetian Senate at least.^ The consuls were 
to notify all captains of merchantmen trading with 
England that they must observe the terms of the 
agreement; and the said captains were to certify 
before the consuls, within reasonable time from date, 
regarding the goods which had been shipped in their 
care. 

The " nations " which signed this agreement bound 
themselves to stay away from the city of London for 
the term of three years, and not to return except by 
mutual agreement on the part of all four parties; 
at the end of that time a majority of three was 
to determine whether or not they should stay 
away from London for a longer time. Three months 
before the expiration of the agreement, each nation 
was to select two delegates, and on their coming 
together, a three-quarters vote should decide what was 
to be done. At the end of five years, in any case, 
they would be at liberty to do what they hked. Each 
nation, too, was to be permitted to send a representa- 
tive to London, but only to collect outstanding debts. 
These articles were thus signed and sealed by the 
delegates of the four nations, who swore on the sac- 

1 Cal. St. Pap,, Ven., I, 84. 



THE ITALIAN MERCHANT IN ENGLAND 255 

rament to observe the agreement under the penalty of 
eternal damnation. Four copies of the compact were 
made, each nation preserving one. Last of all, they 
promised not to injure each other without good cause, 
through anything which might arise from these mutual 
obligations. 

This agreement is of interest as showing the meas- 
ures taken in self-defence by the Italian merchants 
against the hatred and violence of the London mob. 
That it was probably not without effect may be judged 
from the fact that they moved back before 1461.^ 
The second term of absence was thus considered unnec- 
essary, nor was any further self-imposed exile heard of 
from that time. The compact showed, also, the power 
of organization possessed by them ; they were able 
to show their strength, and bind not only themselves 
but others as well who feared to incur their displeasure. 
Their consuls and Massari were the responsible offi- 
cers of each community, through whom official relations 
with their respective republics could be maintained. 
A close connection existed between them and their 
native cities, and at no time in this early period did 
they make any decided attempt to identify themselves 
with those with whom they traded, nor break the ties 
which bound them to their own cities. There was 
then good reason for thinking that to be a citizen of 
Florence or Venice might well seem a nobler title of 
distinction than that of Englishman ; the hatred, more- 
over, manifested toward foreigners also stood in the 

1 Cal. Si. Pap., Fen., I, 84. 



256 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

way of any effort they might make toward seeking 
another allegiance. 

In spite of certain disadvantages they labored under, 
the ItaHan merchants prospered in England. Soon 
after their return to London, in 1465, a new company 
was formed in Florence, to do business in England : 
this time Piero de' Medici and Tommaso Portinari 
provided most of the capital. Of this, too, the terms 
of contract and preliminary agreement are still pre- 
served.^ Without going into the details, which resem- 
ble in substance the contract already examined, in the 
present instance the conduct of affairs in England was 
assigned to two men, Gherardo Canigiani and Giovanni 
de Bardi. Its capital was to be two thousand pounds, 
of which Piero de' Medici alone put in nine hundred ; 
instructions were given that all negotiations, exchanges 
and loans must be conducted in an honest and honor- 
able manner. Moreover, a one-tenth share of the profits 
was to be distributed in charity, either in building 
churches, or in other pious works, to be disposed of by 
Piero de' Medici and Tommaso Portinari. The modern 
English traveller in Florence may find consolation in the 
thought that some of the money made from his fore- 
fathers went to construct the Renaissance churches 
of that city. 

Each one of the junior partners had fifteen pounds 
granted him yearly for his living expenses in 
London, which gives a clew to the purchasing power 
of money at that time. They had to bind them- 

1 Arch. Y\ox.,Jilza 99, Mediceo Avanti il Principato, 108. 



THE ITALIAN MERCHANT IN ENGLAND 257 

selves not to undertake any other kind of busi- 
ness, either directly or indirectly. Other provisions 
were made regarding the rendering of accounts, their 
employees, leaves of absence, the final winding up 
of the business, and various contingencies. They 
were instructed regarding the risks which should be 
taken in shipping merchandise ; while limited to fifty 
pounds on ordinary vessels, they had permission 
to go up to one hundred in the case of Venetian or 
Florentine galleys. They must do no insuring for 
others ; and also pledged themselves not to involve 
the firm, either by their own actions or those of their 
friends or relatives. All gifts of greater value than 
two pounds must be handed over to the company, 
or else charged to their account. They promised 
also to do nothing against the laws of the country ex- 
cept at their own personal risk. This agreement they 
swore faithfully to abide by, leaving any points of dis- 
pute which might arise to be decided by the courts. 

Such contracts as the two cited afford illustrations 
of the commercial Ufe of the time, and the nature 
of the business relations existing between England 
and Italy. On the one hand, Italian merchants im- 
ported to their own country wool and wool cloth, for 
which England was then famous. On the other, they 
exported general merchandise, and especially the spices 
and products of the East,^ for the Itahans were then 
the intermediaries between the Orient and Western 
Europe. In addition to this they did a business of 

1 W. Heyd, Geschichte des Levant Handels, II, 715. 
S 



258 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

banking, money lending and exchange ; their excep- 
tional facilities in different quarters of the civihzed world 
gave them almost a monopoly of such transactions ; at 
the same time their carrying trade was enormous for 
that age, and Itahan ships long enjoyed the supremacy 
of the seas. Their success, however, in different com- 
mercial enterprises lent a spur to the English mer- 
chants and sailors who profited by their example. 

Richard the Third, in 1483, issued an act regu- 
lating the sales of Italian merchants. The fact that 
they sold retail as well as wholesale, to the alleged 
injury of native traders ; that their success was of 
no benefit to England since they did not spend there 
the money they had made ; and further, that they 
played into each other's hands, — were the reasons 
given for his restriction of their trade. Under the wise 
legislation of Henry the Seventh, however, a com- 
mercial treaty was made with the Florentine Republic,^ 
in 1485, by which English merchants undertook to 
carry every year to Florence sufficient wool to supply 
all the Italian states save Venice, while the Florentines 
promised to buy no wool unless carried on Enghsh 
ships. In return for this and other privileges, corre- 
sponding ones were given to the Florentines. The 
Venetians, also, had their charter to trade renewed by 
Henry, in 1507,^ but only on condition that they 
do no more of the carrying trade between England 
and Flanders, which was now left to the " Merchant 
Adventurers." 

1 Mrs. T. R. Green, op. ciL, I, 117. 2 jud. 



THE ITALIAN MERCHANT IN ENGLAND 259 

The early years of the Renaissance in England 
were coincident with the growth and protection of 
trade. At a time when commercial life was still 
despised in feudal Europe, the Italians had reahzed its 
possibilities. Their methods and ideas were largely 
followed and imitated, in banking and exchange, as 
well as in other branches of industry. In many ways 
England was dependent upon Italy ; to give but a 
trivial illustration, the famous cloth of Nottingham was 
long sent to Italy, to receive there the proper scarlet 
dye.^ In commerce, as in other directions, England 
received from Italy a powerful and long-lasting 
stimulus. Through the possibiHties of such inter- 
course, other streams of Italian influence were filtering 
in slowly. Perhaps, had commerce been alone, the 
others might have amounted to nothing, though John 
Free, it is said, was urged to study in Italy by some 
Italian merchants he had met in his native town of 
Bristol. The influence in commerce, however, was 
only a portion of that greater wave which had swept 
over all of Europe. 

IV 

There was no sharp dividing line in the history of 
Italian merchants in England during the Renaissance. 
At the same time, certain distinguishing points of view 
are clearly discernible at different times. In the early 
days, for instance, the feeling existed of the wide gulf 
between them and those with whom they traded. 

1 Mrs. T. R. Green, op. cit., II, 326. 



26o ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

The years they spent in England were years almost of 
exile, undergone by needy ones, among people whom 
they considered barbarians, and among whom, it must 
be said, they Hved in constant danger. The young 
men starting in life were sent out from Italy by wealthier 
merchants, who stayed at home, to establish commer- 
cial houses in England ; but at no time then did they 
endeavor to identify themselves with English hfe in any 
other than a business way. It was undoubtedly true 
that such an attempt, on their part, would have been 
much in the nature of a retrogression. To modern 
minds a sharp cleavage seems almost to separate the 
Middle Ages from the Renaissance. It is difficult to 
imagine the gradual change, when the shadows of one 
age slowly retreated before lights of the new era. 
But the separation was as distinct in place as in time, 
and the years which marked it varied with each nation, 
those who discerned it latest cherishing it the longest. 
In England, through the whole fifteenth century, the 
vitality of the Middle Ages was sinking, and there was 
nothing, as yet, to take its place. Faint glimmers 
of the new fire of Italy flickered above the Alps 
from time to time, while, at the same time, men 
bred in the surroundings of the early Italian Renais- 
sance left their land to trade in foreign countries. 
Between London and Florence there was then 
almost a difference of two ages. However superior 
the Venetian and Florentine may have felt in his 
English mediaeval environment, it seems likely that 
his example may, perhaps unconsciously, have done 



THE ITALIAN MERCHANT IN ENGLAND 26 1 

something to further the cause of the Renaissance 
in England, and hasten the coming of the new learn- 
ing. The story of John Free is significant of what 
may well have taken place. It would be strange 
indeed if, in the leisure hours of the counting house, the 
merchants who, when at home, loved their Petrarch 
and Ovid failed to read them while absent in their 
foreign exile. It is easily conceivable that some of the 
early manuscripts of the ItaHan poets and humanists_. 
still preserved in the college libraries of Oxford 
and Cambridge, were first brought over by Italian 
traders. 

The Italian community in England, and especially 
in London, could not forever keep aloof from the 
native population. So long as centuries of culture 
may be said to have separated the two people, 
the gulf was a natural one ; but after the first seeds of 
the Renaissance had taken root and the new spirit, 
transmitted in a dozen ways, had been planted in Eng- 
land, the chasm was to a great extent bridged over. 
What facilitated the friendlier intercourse between 
Italian merchants and Englishmen, more than anything 
else, was the growth of the centralized monarchy in the 
strong hands of the king. Henry the Seventh endeav- 
ored in every way to promote the commercial welfare 
of his people, and reahzed the advantages to be derived 
from Italian trade and friendlier relations with Italian 
merchants. Earlier ordinances had, it is true, been 
passed in their favor, such as a statute of Henry the Sixth, 
decreeing that no tin or lead be exported from England 



262 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

(except to Calais), save only by mercjiants of Genoa, 
Venice, and Florence, and burgesses of Berwick.^ 
The court, it must be said, had always been least 
open to anti-foreign prejudices, and tried its best to 
shield and protect the Itahans from the violence of the 
London mob; but it was not until the time of the 
Tudors that the crown tried to foster friendly relations, 
not only with Italian merchants, but with Italian com- 
mercial communities. In 1496, in the reign of Henry 
the Seventh, the diplomatic intercourse between Venice 
and England really began.^ For the signory, it was 
transacted by Pietro Contarini and Luca Valatesso, two 
Venetian merchants established in London, who induced 
the king to join the Holy League.^ The next year 
Andrea Trevisani was sent over as regular ambassador, 
and a few years later Francesco Capello, another Vene- 
tian envoy, was knighted by the king. The commercial 
treaties signed by Henry with Florence and Venice have 
been mentioned, as well as his relations with individual 
Italians and his fondness for them at the court. In 
various ways this was noticeable, and the first diplomatic 

1 Hist. Ms, Com., Hatfield House, V, 136. 

2 That is to say, regular relations between the two countries 
began then. Gabriel Dandolo was the first Venetian agent, in 
131 7. Another Venetian, Antonio Bembo, requested Henry the 
Fourth to force the Duke of Norfolk to repay a loan of 750 ducats 
borrowed of him for the duke's pilgrimage to the Holy Land 
in 1404. Michael Steno, then Doge, also interceded for 
Bembo with the king. (Cot. Mss., Brit. Mus., Nero B. VII, 
5 and 6.) 

5 Rawdon Brown, Four Years at the Court of Henry VIII, 
I, XX, note. 



THE ITALIAN MERCHANT IN ENGLAND 263 

correspondence ^between England and Florence con- 
tained letters from Henry ^ requesting the Signoria 
to assist his equerry, Ambonio Spinola, to recover cer- 
tain sums of money, and declared himself willing to 
execute similar demands against his own subjects. 
Another letter recommended his retainer, Antonio 
Corsi,^ whom he was sending to Florence to purchase 
gold cloth and silks sufficient to load three mules, 
at the same time expressing his perfect wilhngness to 
reciprocate in any way he could. 

Although the Italians were for long not permitted to 
have shops in London,* yet, after their return there, 
they began again to assume even greater importance 
than before, and had almost an established position at 
court. Henry the Eighth, for instance, granted letters 
of recommendation, addressed to the Pope and other 
dignitaries, to such merchants as Thomas Corbo and 
Giovanni Cavalcanti, who were among his favorites.5 
There can be but little doubt that the artisans and 
handicraftsmen who came over from Italy to England 
in the early years of the sixteenth century were largely 
encouraged to do so by merchants already there. 
In more ways than one Italians were now beginning 
to mingle with the community at large. Occasion- 

1 The magistrates of Florence had already interceded with 
Edward the Third in behalf of the Bardi (Cot. Mss., Brit. Mus., 
Nero B. VII, 4). 

2 Arch. Flor., Atti Ptcl>., 12th January 1498. 

3 Ibid., 6th July 1502. 

' * Ubaldini, f. 236 ; also Add. Ms. 24,180, Brit. Mus., f. 27. 
5 Manni Trans., Brit. Mus., XXXVH, ff. 128, 616. 



264 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

ally one would marry a native and become an 
Englishman to all intent ; the grandfather of Nicholas 
Grimald, the poet, for instance, was Giovanni Grim- 
aldi, a merchant of Genoa, who became a denizen of 
England in 1485. Usually the position enjoyed by 
Italian merchants at home made them wish to retain 
their nationality. Many of them, however, became 
important personages in the early sixteenth century. 
Leonardo Frescobaldi, the " Master Friskiball " of 
Shakespeare, was well known in London and is men- 
tioned in the Life and Death of Cromwell. Thomas 
Cromwell was also said to have been befriended by 
the Frescobaldis when as a youth he had to beg for 
alms in Florence.^ Frescobaldi was one of the great 
merchants of the day and supplied the king with his 
" damask gold," gilt axes, hand guns, and similar 
merchandise.^ The most prominent of the Italians 
of that time, in England, was Antonio Bonvisi, the 
friend of Sir Thomas More, Cardinal Pole, and other 
well-known men. Stowe says of him that he came 
over to England in 1505, and taught the English 
people to spin with a distaff.^ He acted also as 
banker and news collector for the government, and 
transmitted money and letters to ambassadors abroad. 
He was, moreover, a patron and friend of learned men, 
especially of those anxious to visit or study in Italy. 

1 This story of Bandello, though probably spurious, is yet 
worth repeating. 

2 Stowe Mss., 1 216, Brit. Mus. 

^ Burgon, Sir Thomas Gresham, II, 453. 



^ 



THE ITALIAN MERCHANT IN ENGLAND 265 

Thomas Starkey, Thomas Winter, Florence Volusenus, 
were all his associates, and Sir Thomas More, from 
whom he purchased his residence of Crosby Place, in 
one of the last letters he wrote, spoke of himself 
not " as a guest but a continual nursling of the house 
of Bonvisi." Bonvisi was thus one of the links which 
then bound together the two countries ; it is note- 
worthy that his family did not return to Italy, but 
settled in England. The old Italian idea of exile 
abroad was fast disappearing ; England had caught up 
with rapid strides in the march of civilization, and the 
darkness beyond the Alps was giving away to a new 
dawn. Italians, too, could now feel that another home 
lay open to them. More and more from this time on 
they identified themselves with English life, and al- 
though the anti-foreign prejudices, especially of the 
populace, were not dispelled till long after, there were 
no longer unsurmountable obstacles separating the two 
people. 

At the same time the Italians did not give up their 
almost inherited rights as foreign traders in a day. 
The household book of Henry the Eighth ^ is full of 
records of payments to such merchants as the Fres- 
cobaldi, the Corsi, the Cavalcanti, the Bardi, and so 
forth; and there were many other similar warrants, 
as one of the King, to pay " Charowchon," ^ Merchant 
of Florence, for " three pieces of cloth of gold." The 
same names recur time and time again, and would 
seem to show that the Italian bankers and merchants 

1 Brit. Mus., Mss. 2481 passim. ^ Stowe, Ms. cit. 



266 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

in London were in constant intercourse with the court, 
either as purveyors or money lenders. It was said 
that the king frequently lent money to the Floren- 
tine merchants in order to allow them to extend 
their trade ; they sometimes owed him as much as 
300,000 ducats. The merchants were in this way able 
to obtain funds at a fair rate of interest, while the 
king often empowered his favorites to collect these 
debts for him, allowing them to keep the interest.-^ 
The Italian proclivities of Wolsey and Cromwell further 
encouraged the merchants. Wolsey in particular prob- 
ably influenced the king to suppress the anti-foreign 
riots of 15 1 7. Numerous complaints had been made 
at that time of foreigners bringing over ready-made 
goods to the injury of Englishmen whose work they 
took away : — 

Poor tradesmen had small dealings then; 

And who but strangers bore the bell ? 
Which was a grief to Englishmen, 

To see them here in London dwell. ^ 

The trouble had been stirred by a certain popular 
preacher, who abused the foreigners, accusing them 
not only of depriving Englishmen of the just earnings 
of their labor, but of debauching their famihes. He 
urged the people no longer to permit such a state of 
affairs to go on, and so inflamed them that from that 
day on they threatened to massacre the strangers and 
sack their houses. On the first day of May a mob of 

1 Sebastian Giustiniani, Cal. St. Pap., Ven., II, 562. 

2 Cited by Digby Wyatt, op. cit.y 222. 



THE ITALIAN MERCHANT IN ENGLAND 26/ 

two thousand apprentices and a number of ruffians, 
after pillaging the French and Flemish quarters, pro- 
ceeded to the Italian, shouting death to the cardinal 
for his foreign sympathies. But as the Italians were 
well armed the mob could do but little damage.^ The 
king, however, had been warned of the intended 
massacre. Although at Richmond, he sent troops to 
London who seized all the rioters they found in the 
streets. Gibbets were then raised all over the town, 
and sixty of the mob were hanged, and many others 
executed in other ways. " Very great vengeance was 
taken on them, and his Majesty showed great love 
and good will to the strangers." ^ 

Wolsey employed numerous Italian news collec- 
tors, among whom were Antonio Bonvisi and An- 
tonio Grimaldi.^ Cromwell, also, favored foreigners 
and the Venetian merchants addressed themselves to 
him when they requested him to obtain from the 
king a renewal of their license to trade in England ;* 
the celebrated Aretino even recommended young men 
to his care.' It should not be supposed, however, that 
the Italian traders and bankers preserved the virtual 
monopoly they once enjoyed. Not only were the 
merchants of the Hanseatic League their rivals, 
although chiefly in other branches of trade ; but Eng- 
lishmen, too, had profited from the success of for- 

1 Brewer, Letters and Papers, Henry VIII, II, Pt. II, 1031. 

2 Cal. St. Pap., Ven., II, 385. 

8 Cot. Mss., Brit. Mus., Vitellius, B. XIV, 173. 

* Ibid., Nero, B. VII, 21. & Ibid., Nero, B. VII, 123. 



268 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

eigners and were rapidly learning from them. After 
the silent preparation in the fifteenth century, there 
had come a swift awakening in the next hundred 
years, and the same necessity for foreign enterprise 
to open up English commerce was no longer felt. 
Englishmen were now quite capable of looking after 
their own affairs and developing national industries, 
while judicious protection fostered the growth of 
their foreign trade. The sixteenth century also 
marked a relative decline in Italian commerce. 
Italian merchants were no longer undisputed masters 
of every field, but found new rivals springing up on all 
sides. Italy was fast approaching the downward path, 
and its importance was no longer the same. Although 
Italians during the age of Elizabeth occupied many 
positions of prominence in commercial and bank- 
ing circles, their situation was yet a different one from 
what it once had been. Toward the end of the cen- 
tury they formed rather isolated instances, or seemed 
so at least when considered among the greater number 
of English competitors. On the other hand, they no 
longer assumed the entirely alien point of view which 
made their sojourn in England in former days seem 
temporary; although retaining their Italian charac- 
ter, they yet entered English life, sharing alike its 
privileges and responsibilities. Some became citi- 
zens, others married English women. One, the most 
prominent member of the Italian community of his 
day, in the time of national danger, equipped a vessel 
at his own cost in the fight against the Armada. 



THE ITALIAN MERCHANT IN ENGLAND 269 



An English contemporary observer wrote of the 
Italian merchants that they " fly abroad in exceed- 
ing abundance to all places, and in wealth (wherever 
they come) overtop all other, such is their skill, 
their wit, their industry, their parsimony," ^ It 
will be sufficient to consider here certain of the 
Italian merchants in England during the sixteenth 
century, as illustrating phases of the commercial re- 
lations between the two countries, and showing their 
general character. Three types of men can be 
found : Sir Antonio Guidotti, the negotiator of 
loans betv/een Henry the Eighth and Duke Cosimo 
of Florence, who was knighted by Edward the Sixth 
and later returned to Italy, leaving behind him in 
poverty an English wife and children ; Ruberto Ri- 
dolfi, banker, conspirator and unofficial agent of 
the Pope, who plotted against Elizabeth ; and Sir 
Horatio Pallavicino, merchant and political agent, who 
came to England in the service of the Vatican, and 
then identified himself in every way with the inter- 
ests of the country he was to make his home. 

Sir Antonio Guidotti belongs to the first half of 
the sixteenth century. In a letter to Cromwell, 
written in 1536, he offered to bring over to England 
some silk weavers from Messina ; " what became of this 
project is unknown. He was one of the Florentine 

^ Sandys, Speculum Europce, Sig. M. 2 b. 

2 Cot. Mss., Brit. Mus., Vitellius, B. XIV, 241. 



270 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

merchants, however, whose trading ventures brought 
him into close relations with the king. He was the 
go-between and negotiator of a loan of ^15,000 
made by Duke Cosimo of Florence to Henry the 
Eighth, who wanted the money for his invasion of 
France. The duke seems to have been unwilling at 
first to lend the money, but was advised to do so 
by Guidotti, who argued that it would be to his 
advantage in Italy. 

The amount borrowed was to be paid back in instal- 
ments extending over a period of thirty years ; ^ the 
interest given was to be twelve per cent ; Guidotti 
assured the duke that it was both a sound and profit- 
able investment. His own share, he wanted him to 
understand, would come in only in the thanks he 
should receive from the duke and the king, which 
would compensate him amply for the trouble he had 
taken and the slander of his enemies. He informed 
the duke also that King Henry had given him plated 
money in exchange on which a profit could be made, 
as it was greatly in demand, particularly in Venice and 
Pisa. The royal treasurer, Briam Tuck [Sir Bryan 
Tuke], was a very intimate friend of his and he had 
arranged the loan with him. Guidotti himself had 
borrowed of him five thousand ducats, Cavalcanti and 
Giraldi, the duke's London correspondents, vouching 
for him.^ From subsequent letters it would appear 
that Guidotti had a falling-out of some sort with the 

1 Carteggio Universale Mediceo, Arch. Flor., 341. 
2 Vide Filza Med., 371 Cte., 3/4, 55. 



THE ITx\LIAN MERCHANT IN ENGLAND 2J\ 

London agents for he wrote the duke that he had been 
warned against them. He feared that if the affair fell 
through he would lose the king's consideration entirely ; 
but the loan, he felt sure, possessed too many advan- 
tages to fail. The thousand ducats profits which he 
acknowledged he expected to make on the negotia- 
tions, he hoped to give as dowry to his eighteen-year- 
old daughter, who was still in a convent, and whom he 
wanted to marry off as soon as possible. He assured 
the duke that the king bore him great good will, and 
held him in greater consideration than any of the other 
princes of Italy. This he could say without any flattery 
at all, as few knew the king better than he did. He 
had been about this affair for the last three years, 
and almost ruined himself over it. If it were to fall 
through now, it would break his heart, and he implored 
the duke to have pity on him and on his little chil- 
dren. There is a curious combination in all these 
letters of personal appeals and business considera- 
tions : at one time he proclaimed total disinterested- 
ness in the matter, and then confessed that unless the 
loan should materialize he would be virtually a ruined 
man ; elsewhere again he brought in his own personal 
affairs, and tried to interest the duke in them ; it 
was a strange spectacle, however, to see a reigning 
prince occupied with business transactions and lending 
money at a remunerative rate of interest to another 
sovereign. 

Guidotti at last wrote the duke that there was grave 
danger lest the king of Portugal might lend the 



272 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

money to Henry. This evidently settled matters, for 
in a letter to his agent in London ^ the duke wrote 
that he had definitely accepted the proposition. The 
payments were to be made by Bartholomew Fortini,- the 
agent of the firm of Cavalcanti and Giraldi in London. 
The instructions were given and explained in Latin 
letters to Sir Bryan Tuke, the royal treasurer.^ Anto- 
nio Guidotti himself received a pension in 1550 for his 
services,* and was later knighted by Edward the Sixth.^ 
On his return to Florence he is said to have been 
publicly welcomed, and to have received the con- 
gratulations of the entire city. He left his family 
in England, however, and a letter of Queen Mary to 
Cosimo^ requested the duke to see to it that Guidotti, 
who had been given an ample pension, should provide 
for his wife, Dorothy Guidotti, and her three chil- 
dren, who were then living in great poverty. The later 
history of the loan can be quickly told. In 1558 
Elizabeth wrote the duke that she wished to pay it.^ 
No immediate steps seem at first to have been taken ; 
but a few years later she began payment of the loan, 
and made good the money her father had borrowed.^ 
Elizabeth, it may be said, took good care to protect 
and foster English trade and shipping, which was still 
in its infancy. Many of her communications to the 

1 Arch, rior., Arch. Med. Minute del \<^6,^,filza No. 6. 

2 Ibid. 7 Ibid., f. 16. 

* Arch. Med., 372 Cte., 258 ei seg. ^ Ibid. 

* Lit. Rem. of Ed. VI, II, 256. 

* Correspondence of Sir Thomas Copley, p. 112. 
6 Arch. Med., 4183, f. 9. 



THE ITALIAN MERCHANT IN ENGLAND 273 

Grand Duke of Tuscany relate to commerce, and she 
tried to obtain special trading facilities for her sub- 
jects.* 

Ruberto Ridolfi, banker and conspirator, belongs 
rather to the type of Italian who refused to identify 
himself with the interests of the country in which he 
had for so many years made his home. He used the 
position he had acquired in banking circles to plot 
against Queen Elizabeth, although he was shrewd 
enough to escape detection while his fellow conspira- 
tors perished on the scaffold. He was employed in 
various ways by Sir William Cecil and the crown, and 
at the same time supplied English information to the 
French and Spanish ambassadors, receiving pensions 
from both. Protestant England meant to him the 
enemy's country, and his life there was that of an in- 
triguer and spy, shielding his own work behind that 
of nobler men who gave up their lives for the Catholic 
cause. Ridolfi's career in contrast with that of Pal- 
lavicino explains how difficult it is to draw general- 
izations. Of the two Italians, both prominent in 
England, the one refused to assimilate himself in 
any way, the other became to all purposes an 
Englishman. 

Sir Horatio Pallavicino, a Genoese by birth, was one 
of the most interesting men of his time. He had first 
gone to England recommended to Mary, who was then 
queen. Having received an appointment as collector 
of papal taxes, he turned Protestant, kept what he had 

1 Arch. Med., 4183, fif. 26, 54. 



274 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

collected/ and became one of the great merchants of 
the day, lending money at usurious rates of interest to 
Elizabeth and Henry of Navarre. He was even said 
to have saved the English monarchs from ruin on one 
occasion. In addition to his banking business, he was 
a great collector of pohtical intelhgence. His many 
correspondents enabled him to secure information 
ahead of others, and he was often employed by the 
government to furnish foreign news.^ He was natu- 
ralized an Englishman, and at the time of the Armada 
equipped a vessel at his own expense and was present 
as a volunteer. Anxious, as he wrote in a letter to 
Cecil, to show his devotion to the queen and to Eng- 
land, he decided that his best service could be done 
by sea ; he was easily able to provide himself with 
what was necessary for a naval battle, and trusted the 
lord admiral would give him, as he had promised, 
one of the queen's ships to command.^ In 1589 he 
tried political intrigue of his own, to upset the Spanish 
rule in the Netherlands;^ and several of his cipher 
letters to Burghley on affairs of state are still preserved.^ 
His chief occupation, however, was the negotiation of 
loans for the British and Dutch governments. At the 
time of his death the queen owed him ;^2 9,000, 

1 An epitaph written after his death read : — 
" Here lies Horatio Palavazene 

Who robbed the Pope to lend the queen." 

2 Hist. Ms. Com., Hatfield House, IV passim. 
8 Ibid., IV, 563. 

* Motley, United Netherlands, H, 539 et seq. 
6 Hist. Ms. Com., Hatfield House, \\\ passtm. 



^ THE ITALIAN MERCHANT IN ENGLAND 275 

which was never fully repaid to his heirs by the gov- 
ernment. Money from the queen had been due for 
some time, and there are many memoranda of such 
debts. Already, in 1593, she owed him ^30,000; 
two years he begged for payment^ which was not 
forthcoming. His brothers, he wrote, had suffered 
much in Italy for the sake of her Majesty, and the 
debt in question was the better part of their patri- 
mony as well as the means of maintaining their dignity. 
Regarding the interest on the debt, although by no 
means small, he submitted himself entirely to the 
queen's pleasure, but begged that the loan might 
soon be settled, otherwise he feared that his brothers 
would seize as security the merchandise of English 
subjects and thereby incur her displeasure. In this 
letter he alluded to the bond of the City of London 
as " the first to-day in Europe." 

Pallavicino throughout his life acted the part of a 
patriotic Englishman, and maintained his position with 
dignity and honor. He was on terms of friendship 
with Cecil, who reminded him in one letter'' of the 
reputation he enjoyed at court ; Lord Buckhurst also 
in a letter to Ehzabeth's great minister spoke of him 
as his friend.' In the correspondence which passed 
between Pallavicino and Cecil, he told the latter that 
he would like his son Henry to pass under his guardian- 
ship,* and later sent him another son,^ Edward, whom 

1 Hist. Ms. Com., Hatfield House, IV, 444. V, 462. 

2 Ibid., IV, 609. a Ibid., IV, 552. 4 Ibid., V, 24S. 
^ Ibid.,\l, 175. 



276 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

he had promised to take into his service. He trusted 
that he would find use for his pen as well as for his 
body. He was evidently anxious to become Angli- 
cized in every way, and even wrote Cecil^ that he 
wanted to marry his sisters-in-law to Englishmen 
according to arrangements he had made, but that 
they were timid. His own family, by a rather remark- 
able series of alHances, married Cromwells, and broke 
away entirely from their Italian ties. 

Pallavicino was a remarkable character in many 
ways. Not only was he banker and political agent, 
but Italian architect as well to Queen Elizabeth. 
At his death Theophilus Field wrote and edited An 
Italian's Dead Body, a book of elegies on the death 
of Sir Horatio Pallavicino, and Bishop Hall contrib- 
uted verses to his memory. But he was remarkable 
in showing that, in spite of somewhat evil beginnings, 
he could become a loyal and patriotic Englishman, 
ready to do his duty to his adopted country. Ideas 
had greatly changed since the days of Antonio 
Bonvisi. Italy had retrograded, crushed by foreign 
oppression ; and England had advanced, and asserted 
her place in the first rank of nations. She had 
destroyed the invincible Armada, and her sailors had 
singed the beard of the king of Spain. English gold 
and English arms on the Continent were now lend- 
ing aid to the Protestants in France and the Low 
Countries. Italians therefore needed no longer to 
be ashamed to seek another nationality. Excepting 

1 Hist. Ms. Com., Hatfield House, V, 2. 



THE ITALIAN MERCHANT IN ENGLAND 2JJ 

Venice, which was even then in its decline, the 
other cities of Italy retained scarce a shadow of 
their former power. Their earlier commercial su- 
premacy was a thing of the past ; Elizabeth might still 
borrow huge sums from a Pallavicino or a Spinola,^ 
but the crown was no longer dependent on Italian 
bankers alone, whose capital had been accumulated 
in former years. The growing resources of England 
were coming into play, and English industry and 
commerce, wisely encouraged, were forging to the 
front. It is therefore scarcely surprising that the 
Italians who settled in England should seek to 
identify themselves with the new nation, rather than 
cling to their own decaying cities. Fanatics and 
zealots like Ridolfi might still remain irreconcilably 
hostile, but the wiser, the more far-sighted among 
them saw that the old sun had set and a new star 
was above the horizon. They could throw in their 
lot with England, and of their English citizenship 
justly feel proud. 

VI 

There was another way in which Italians may be 
said to have influenced English trade and commerce. 
Not only did the example of Italian bankers and mer- 
chants give Englishmen a knowledge of commercial 
methods such as had hitherto been unknown to 
them, but Italian navigators and explorers, and Italian 
geographers and writers of travel, prepared the way for 

1 Hist. Ms. Com., Hatfield House, II, 356. 



278 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 



1 



Englishmen to follow, and distinguish themselves in the 
deeds of daring which marked the closing years of the 
sixteenth century. 

It would be idle to dwell here on the numerous 
Italian explorers and navigators. Columbus, who 
gave a new continent to Spain, was but the greatest 
of a long line of Italian navigators. In England, 
as is well known, the elder Cabot, who was Genoese 
by birth, Venetian by citizenship, EngHsh by adop- 
tion, sailed from Bristol to discover the American 
coast in his attempt to reach India. His daring son 
commanded the first English ship to visit the West 
Indies and South America, and he was later made life 
governor of the Company of Merchant Adventurers. 
But long before the Cabots first led English sailors 
on paths of adventure and exploration, Venetian and 
Genoese galleys between Southampton and other 
ports acted as carriers for English merchandise. 
There can be little doubt that this example, com- 
bined with the natural seafaring inclination of the 
race, led Englishmen to ply the trade which was so 
successful in enriching Italians. English shipping, 
moreover, was greatly encouraged by the wise regu- 
lations of Henry the Seventh, who tried to foster 
and protect the new source of national wealth. 

But the influence and example here to be con- 
sidered was rather a literary one, derived from the 
books of exploration and travels. It is well known 
that the Florentine, Amerigo Vespucci, whose name 
has been given to the new continent, wrote the first 



THE ITALIAN MERCHANT IN ENGLAND 279 

account of it. Italian geographers and cosmographers 
were then far ahead of those of other nations. It is 
scarcely to be wondered at, therefore^ that some of the 
first English books of travel in the Renaissance were 
translations from Italian works. Already, in 1550-51, 
Wilham Thomas dedicated to the king, as his New 
Year's gift, a translation of Josaphat Barbaro's Ac- 
count of his Voyages to the East, published in Venice 
in 1543. A more interesting and important work, 
however, was to be published a few years later, The 
Decades of the New World, by Pietro Martire d'An- 
ghiera,^ one of the principal authorities on the settle- 
ment of America to this day.^ A second and more 
complete edition (in spite of its omitting several of 
the earlier accounts) appeared some twenty years 
later.^ The book was a general history of travel and 
exploration from the time of Columbus, compiled 
by Peter Martyr, an Italian by birth, who, like many 
of his compatriots, had gone into the service of the 
king of Spain, where he became president of the Royal 
Council for the West Indies, and collected narratives 
of the great explorers in the Spanish service. To the 

1 The Decades of the New World, by Peter Martyr of Angleria, 
translated into English by Richard Eden, 1555. 

2 Vide J. G. Underhill, Spanish Literature in the Englatid of 
the Ticdors, p. 124, for the Spanish influence in EHzabethan 
books of travel. 

3 The History of Travel in the West ajid East Indies, and 
other countries. . . . With a discourse of the northwest 
passage. . . . Translated by Richard Eden and by Richard 
Willes, 1577. 



28o ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 



original edition, translated by Richard Eden, Willes 
added the travels of Luigi Vertomanno of Rome, in 
Arabia, Persia, Syria, and other countries of the Orient, 
and a description of Northeast Frosty Seas as related 
by the ambassador of the Duke of Muscovy to a learned 
gentleman of Italy named Galeatius Butrigarius, who 
had written them down. An account was added of 
the voyages "of that worthy old man, Sebastian 
Cabot," and several other translations as well from 
the Italian, as, for instance, a description of China 
by Galeotto Perera, who had been a prisoner there. 
One of the few English records in the book consisted 
of extracts from Anthony Jenkinson's Journey to 
Persia in 1561, where he had been sent as ambas- 
sador "With the Queen's Majesty's letters in the 
Latin, Italian, and Hebrew tongue to the great Sophy 
and King of Persia." 

The most interesting portion of the work related 
to Columbus' discovery of America. A description 
was given of the new territories and their riches, 
well calculated to inflame the Elizabethan imagina- 
tion. In the epistle to the reader, Willes bade him 
" consider the fruits, the drugs, the pearls, the treas- 
ure, the miUions of gold and silver, the Spaniards 
have brought out of the West Indies since the first 
voyage of Columbus. . . . The north western voyage 
be it never so full of difficulties will become as plau- 
sible as any other journey, if our passengers may 
return with plenty of silver, silks and pearl. Let 
Columbus, Americus, Cortesius, be well set forth 



THE ITALIAN MERCHANT IN ENGLAND 28 1 

again and bountifully rewarded, you shall hear of 
other and new found lands yet altogether un- 
known." 

Other books were translated from the Italian, such 
as the travels of Cesare Federici, a Venetian mer- 
chant in the Orient.^ The author had spent eighteen 
years in the far East, and as he thought the subject 
new and never before treated, he gave an account 
of the princes of the Indies, their religious faith, 
rites, custom.s, and also a description of the products 
of the countries. Both the novelty and rarity of the 
subject attracted the translator, who apologized for 
his want of learning and use of the ordinary speech; 
his purpose had been that Enghsh merchants and 
his other countrymen might profit by the book, and 
he prophesied great wealth for those who travelled 
in these regions. 

In Italy, long before the rest of Europe, geography 
had received the same stimulus as other arts and 
sciences, and the superiority of Italians in its 
study over all other nations was long maintained. 
Italy, in the Renaissance, continued to be the home 
of geographical hterature, at a time when the dis- 
coverers themselves came almost exclusively from the 
countries of Western Europe. In the first half of 
the sixteenth century, Italian maps were in advance of 
any others, and even much later a portion of Botero's 

1 The Voyage and Travel of M. Cesare Frederick, Merchant 
of Venice into the East India, the Indies, and beyond the Indies. 
. . . Translated by T(homas) H(ickok), 1588. 



282 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

great work on the geography of the world was trans- 
lated into English.^ 

It would be too much to say that the accounts of 
the great Italian navigators and explorers led EKza- 
bethan seamen to similar deeds of daring. At the 
same time, there can be little doubt that the example 
set by a Columbus or a Cabot, or the descriptions of 
a Vespucci, did much to fan their smouldering love 
of adventure. The venturesome tendencies of the 
nation could no longer be kept in, when once it 
had heard or read the deeds of others. In this, also, 
Italy led the v/ay for Western Europe to follow. The 
art of Michael Angelo or Leonardo, the statecraft 
of Machiavelli, the poetry of Ariosto, the discov- 
eries of Columbus, seem widely separated at first 
glance, looking back from modern times ; yet they 
were but different phases of the same movement. 
The energy which could not be restrained, the daring 
which knew no bounds, the desire to tread still virgin 
soil, the striving toward perfection, were all charac- 
teristic of the Italian Renaissance. 

In Italy, after the age of action was once over, 
there followed a more critical period when the adven- 
tures of former times were digested and studied, and 
geography, enriched by many discoveries, became a 
science. At a time when the countries of Western 
Europe were sending their expeditions to distant seas, 

^ The Ti'avellers' Breviat, or an historical description of the 
most famous kijigdoms in the world. Translated by Robert 
Johnson from Botero, i6oi. 



THE ITALIAN MERCHANT IN ENGLAND 283 

in search of gold, or to look for the western passage 
to Cathay, Italian activity of this sort had narrowed 
almost to a critical one alone. Their geographers were 
now supreme, where once their navigators had been. 

This was, then, the period when Italian books of 
travel and adventure were translated into English, 
and inflamed the Elizabethan imagination with their 
tales of riches and conquest. Just as Italian bankers 
and merchants had first shown England the possi- 
bilities of commercial life, so too in exploration and 
adventure their example proved a powerful one. 
Even then, in the age of the hardy Ehzabethan sea- 
men, the trade of Italy was not dead. Venice was 
in many ways what England is to-day ; her colonies 
formed a colonial empire governed by a merchant 
aristocracy. Although the trade of the Atlantic, and 
the new passage around the Cape of Good Hope, no 
longer left Venice the highway for direct intercourse 
with the East, the position she had taken centuries 
to build was not lost in a day. The knowledge of 
the Orient came first from Italy to England. It was 
through Venice that English ambassadors and mer- 
chants passed on their way to Constantinople and 
the Orient. It was Venice which brought East and 
West together in a common bond of trade. 

The Italian influence in England through com- 
merce was most important. The mere presence in 
a city such as London of a number of foreign mer- 
chants, trained in superior methods, possessing greater 
skill in commerce than had heretofore been known. 



284 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

could not but influence, by their example, the native 
community. Even to this day many Italian commer- 
cial terms have remained in English use : debtor and 
creditor, for instance ; cash from cassa ; journal from 
giornale ; bank and bankrupt, from banco and banco- 
rotto ; the abbreviations for /m, soldi and denari, and 
that of company on the Bank of England notes, and the 
oft-recurring ditto, which should be spelled with an e 
instead of an {} When, toward the end of the sixteenth 
century, the English succeeded in freeing themselves 
from their foreign competitors, who had once enjoyed 
almost a monopoly of banking and the commerce of 
other countries, it was due as much to their growing 
technical and commercial capacity as to the trade 
regulations enforced by the government.^ Alongside 
of the growth in native enterprise, and of commer- 
cial ideas in England, and running parallel with it, 
a great change had taken place in the Italian mer- 
chants in England. Coming over at first for a tem- 
porary sojourn in what they then regarded as a 
barbarous country, whose inhabitants, ignorant of 
the broader elements of commerce, hated them for 
their success, they gradually settled in the land, and 
many of them became English in their sentiments 
and devotion. At the same time, by their residence 
and example, they did much to teach ideas of trade 
to the EngHsh. They had been merchants when 

1 Burgon, op. cit., I, 282, note. 

2 Vide Hamburg und England in Zeitalter der Konigin 
Elizabeth^ Richard Ehrenberg, 1896. 



THE ITALIAN xMERCHANT IN ENGLAND 285 

elsewhere in Europe trade was still despised. Their 
industry and enterprise in foreign parts had amassed 
wealth for them through the long years when other 
nations were still in the Middle Ages. In commerce, 
as in art and science, they discovered the new life, 
recognizing possibilities which lay open to them, 
and the new foundation for the work of nations as 
of men. ItaUan city republics first in modern times 
had grasped the idea of a navy necessary to protect 
their shipping and uphold their interests. The 
energy, the vigor, the daring and courage of the 
Itahan Renaissance found itself reflected no less 
strongly in the history of its merchants and explorers, 
than in the works of its painters and poets. ( In 
commerce, as in the arts and sciences, Italy held 
up the guiding hght for the rest of Europe to follow.\ 



CHAPTER VII 

ITALIAN POLITICAL AND HISTORICAL IDEAS 
IN ENGLAND 



The transition effected by the Wars of the Roses, 
which led to the firm foundation of the Tudor mon- 
archy under Henry the Seventh, marked the transfor- 
mation of England from a feudal state to a centralized 
government under a prince possessing practically abso- 
lute power. It was characteristic of the period that 
similar changes were taking place about the same time 
in both France and Spain, where the decaying ideas of 
the Middle Ages were gradually becoming obscured 
by new conceptions, whose theoretical foundation at 
least was made possible by the revival of classical 
antiquity. 

One of the most significant changes in the history 
of civilization is that, while in modern times the study 
of antiquity has suggested rather the Athenian democ- 
racy and Roman republic, it was otherwise in past 
centuries, when, from the time of the revival of 
Roman law at Bologna and Padua, the memory of 
imperial Rome was always present to the mind 
of the student and political dreamer. It was per- 

286 



ITALIAN POLITICAL IDEAS IN ENGLAND 28/ 

haps for this reason, in part, that the new humanism 
obtained its first patrons among ItaHan despots, whose 
example was later imitated in other countries of 
Europe. Classical learning did not appear to them 
as a dangerous model which might incite their sub- 
jects to strike for hberty, but rather a justification, 
in an age of reason, of the same despotic power they 
were then endeavoring to wield. At a time when 
precedent and tradition counted for so much, they 
sought to find in the example of great men of former 
times the sanction, as it were, of the power which 
in many instances they had obtained by the most 
unscrupulous means. This was especially the case 
in Italy, where classical tradition was stronger than 
in any other country. It would, however, be a mis- 
take to suppose that princes elsewhere were insensible 
to the advantages of a patronage of learned men, 
ready to find an ancient pedigree for their methods of 
government. The historical resemblances, which could 
in all cases be discovered between their own rule and 
that of the princes of classical antiquity, must natu- 
rally have appealed to them at a time when they were 
endeavoring to strip the nobility of their feudal power 
in order to centralize it in themselves. In such pat- 
ronage, moreover, they could feel that they were fol- 
lowing in the footsteps of an Augustus or a Hadrian, 
with whom the claims of an empire had not destroyed 
an appreciation of letters and the arts. 

From another point of view, as well, it is apparent 
that Italian scholars and humanists could hope to find 



288 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

a ready welcome at foreign courts. Not only were they 
first in the field, but the encouragement received 
at the hands of a Montefeltro or a Malatesta must 
have spurred them on to similar conquests. Beyond 
the Alps the whole of Europe stretched before them, 
while the competition among learned men diminished 
where their numbers were few. The fact, moreover, 
that they were aliens, with no ties binding them to the 
soil, and dependent only on the good will of their 
patron, favored them with princes, who often did not 
dare trust their half- submissive noblemen. 

Beginning about 1460, the new centralized power 
at the court encouraged the growth of letters. Ed- 
ward the Fourth laid the foundation of the new 
monarchy in England ; he practically discontinued 
Parliament and worked silently toward absolute power ; 
he introduced a system of spies, and even interfered 
with the pure administration of justice. But he also 
encouraged Caxton in the new art of printing, and 
gave directions that no hindrance be placed on any 
stranger who might import or sell books in the king- 
dom. He was the first in England of the new type 
of princes who broke loose from the feudal traditions 
of the Middle Ages, and endeavored to centraHze 
power in the hands of the monarch alone, and make 
of him at once an absolute ruler and a patron of arts 
and letters, although Hke many of the Italian despots, 
he united utter unscrupulousness with cultivation. But 
stormy days were still at hand, and it was not until the 
accession of Henry the Seventh that the position of 



ITALIAN POLITICAL IDEAS IN ENGLAND 289 

learning began to be secure. Although life gave Henry 
but little opportunity for culture, his tastes were all 
inclined toward the patronage of literature and *art. 
What he did most successfully was to play in England 
the role of an Italian despot. The best contemporary 
appreciation of his methods and character has, per- 
haps, for this reason been written by the Italian, 
Polydore Vergil. 

Edward the Fourth conferred the highest English 
distinction, the Order of the Garter, upon Duke Fred- 
erick of Urbino. The same honor was later granted 
by Henry the Seventh to Duke Guidobaldo. There 
were other evidences of his desire to be on a friendly 
footing with Italian princes, even though they could 
be of little direct advantage to him. His corre- 
spondence, for instance, with the Estensi of Fer- 
rara, and the frequent employment of Italians in his 
service, would seem to indicate that they were sym- 
pathetic to his nature. His policy, moreover, in its 
steady direction toward an absolute despotism, had 
been made familiar by Italian examples. While it "^ '^ 
would be going too far to say that he held any Italian 
model consciously before him in his creation of the 
Tudor monarchy, it seems likely that the political 
methods and ideas of Italy were present in his mind i 
as he labored to strengthen his rule. 

Polydore Vergil, soon after he had taken up his 

residence in London, became intimate with Henry 

the Seventh, at whose request he is said to have written 

his history of England, on which he was to spend 

u 



290 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

almost thirty years of his life. It was not the first 
English historical work by an Italian ; Tito Livio of 
Forli, "poet and orator of the Duke of Gloucester," 
had long before written a life of Henry the Fifth.^ 
Polydore Vergil, however, in spite of his poor reputa- 
tion for veracity,^ was the first to employ modern 
methods in English history, and attempt to weigh 
authorities, summarize character, and tell a connected 
story. The historical method he employed was far 
in advance of anything England had known. The 
first part of the book roused national prejudices ; he 
discarded Brute, the reputed founder of England, as 
an imaginary character, and treated Geoffrey of Mon- 
mouth's history as a combination of fact and fable, 
on which but little reliance could be placed.^ Vergil's 
history, however, recorded not only political events, 
but such facts as the introduction of the new learning 
into England. It was of especial value for. its ac- 
count of the reign of Henry the Seventh, with whose 
aims and character he sympathized. His work, in spite 
of numerous errors which can be excused by reason 
of his ignorance of English dialects and customs, was 
a contribution of real importance. A letter of his to 
James the Fourth of Scotland is significant as show- 
ing the method he employed in writing.* He had 

1 Voigt, II, 255. 

2 Cf. " Maro and Polydore bore Vergil's name ; 

One reaps a poet's, one a liar's fame." 

^ Three Books of VergiVs English History, Camden Society, 
1844. Introduction. ^ Cat. St. Pap., Henry VIII, I, 105. 



ITALIAN POLITICAL IDEAS IN ENGLAND 29 1 

visited England, he said, largely to see the country 
and study its antiquities. He had been so surprised to 
find its history confused, and unknown even to English- 
men, that he determined, in consequence, to write a 
short chronicle, which was now finished. Very few 
references to Scotland had been made, since 
there was no good author to follow. He therefore 
requested King James to furnish him either with 
annals of the country, or with the names and lives 
of Scottish kings, his own amongst the number. 

With all its blunders, the history enjoyed consider- 
able influence. Vergil's personal animosity to Wolsey 
led him, however, to defame the great cardinal's 
character; his opinion was passed on from one 
Enghsh historian to another. Hall taking it from 
Vergil, Foxe from Hall, Burnet and Strype from Foxe, 
Hume from Burnet, and so on.^ But English history 
owed a real debt to Polydore Vergil. In the dedica- 
tion of his work to Henry the Eighth he compared 
the early chronicles of Bede and Gildas to meat with- 
out the salt, which it was his object to supply ; but 
recognizing their value, he edited Gildas for the first 
time in 1525. Alike in his methods and in his use of 
material he ushered the new study of history into 
England. 

II 

The influence of Machiavelli first entered England 
with Thomas Cromwell. Like many other EngHsh- 
men of the age, Cromwell probably took part in the 

1 Brewer, Henry VIII, I, 264 et seq. 



292 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

Italian wars and there learned the language. From 
soldiering he became a trader, and acted as commer- 
cial agent to a Venetian merchant. In after years, 
when he became minister, it appears to have been 
Italy that left its deepest stamp on him. Not only, it 
was said, ^' in the rapidity and unscrupulousness of his 
designs, but in their larger scope, their clearer purpose 
and admirable combination, the Italian statecraft en- 
tered with Cromwell into EngUsh politics." ^ He was 
the first EngUsh minister in whom there can be traced 
the steady working out of a great and definite aim to 
raise the king to absolute authority on the ruins of 
every rival power within the realm. His policy was 
-4- closely modelled on the lines laid down by Machiavelli. 
While still in the employ of Wolsey, he advised Regi- 
nald Pole to read as his manual in poUtics The 
Prince which he possessed in manuscript even 
before it had been pubhshed in Italy, and which he 
described as a practical work on government far more 
useful than the dreams of Plato.^ His own aim was 
to secure peace and order for England by central- 
izing all power in the crown, and strengthening the 
hands of the king. As the church alone stood in the 
way of the absolute rule of the king, the last check that 
had survived the Wars of the Roses, his unbending 

1 J. R. Green, Short History of England, p. 335. For the 
influence of Machiavelli on other English statesmen, vide W. 
Alison Phillips' article in the Nineteenth Century, December, 

1896. 

2 For Pole's opinion of Machiavelli, vide Epistolce Reg. Pole, 

1744, p. 151. 



ITALIAN POLITICAL IDEAS IN ENGLAND 293 

efforts and energies were directed to destroying its 
authority. His interest for the present study Hes, how- 
ever, in his being the first great English disciple of 
Machiavelh. 

Long before the writings of Machiavelli had as yet 
been read in England, or his influence had made 
itself felt in pohtical philosophy, several other Italian 
thinkers were well known. Sir Thomas More, it will 
be remembered, was thoroughly famiHar with the best 
Italian thought, and fondly cherished Pico della Mir- 
andola as his one ideal. Sir Thomas Elyot was perhaps 
even more affected by Italian philosophy. The influ- 
ence of Pontano, the elder Patrizi, Pico, and many 
minor writers, has been traced in his Governour} a 
treatise on the education of statesmen, dedicated to 
Henry the Eighth ; to this book Elyot owed his ap- 
pointment as ambassador to Charles the Fifth. The 
Governour was one of the earliest treatises on moral 
philosophy in English, although similar works had been 
written by Fortescue in the fifteenth century, and in 
Italy, by Pontano and Beroaldo. To Pontano Elyot 
readily acknowledged his indebtedness ; but the book 
which he really took as his model, and borrowed from 
to a great extent, was a work very popular at that 
time, by Francesco Patrizi.- Between it and The 
Governour a general similarity exists, and many 
passages are identical, translated word for word., 

1 Sir Thomas Elyot, The Governour, ed. H. II. S. Croft, 
p. Ixiii et seq. 

2 De Regno et Regio Institutione. 



I^-^^- 



294 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

Elyot showed his familiarity as well with the writ- 
ings of several Italian humanists, such as Valla, Perotto, 
Calepino, and many others of less repute.^ The 
purpose he had in writing was that the children of the 
upper classes should be better educated in order that 
they too "may be deemed worthy to be Governours" ; 
all this was thoroughly characteristic of the Renaissance. 
The influence of Machiavelli, however, had not as yet 
reached him, nor does he seem to have been aware of 
its existence. 

Another English political thinker, somewhat later in 
date, was John Ponet (or Poynet), Bishop of Win- 
chester, who was also familiar with Italian, and had 
himself translated the Ti-agedy of Ochino. In his 
treatise on political power ^ he discussed the causes 
of its growth, the reasons which sanctioned it, and its 
proper use and duty. He found a justification in the 
law of nature for all animals to be ruled by a superior 
creature. Government he divided, like Aristotle, into 
monarchy, aristocracy and democracy; the state in 
which all three had power was in his judgment the 
best. A discussion followed as to whether kings, 
princes and other governors possessed absolute power 
and authority over their subjects : should the prince 
be subject to the law of God and of his country? The 
answer to this, that the prince must obey his own laws, 
he pretended to find in the Bible. He considered the 

^ The Governour, p. cxxxv. 

2 A Short Treatise of Politic Power and of the True Obedi- 
ence which Subjects owe to Kings, 1556. 



ITALIAN POLITICAL IDEAS IN ENGLAND 295 

question as to how far subjects were bound to obey 
their princes. Furthermore, if the property of the sub- 
ject belonged to the prince, might he not lawfully take 
it as his own. In discussing the great question " whether 
it be lawful to depose an evil governor and kill a ty- 
rant," Ponet proved himself to be one of the earliest 
English advocates of tyrannicide. In the examples 
given as illustrations, he showed his familiarity with 
Itahan, and particularly Venetian, history. 

Scattered through the pages of Elizabethan litera- 
ture can be found hundreds of references to Machia- 
velli,^ whose name passed as a synonym for treachery 
and tyranny, used even by many who had never seen 
his works. At the same time, in a less known direc- 
tion, his influence made itself felt in English political 
philosophy. His method and ideas were reflected 
particularly in the writings of William Thomas, John 
Leslie, Thomas Bedingfield and Charles Merbury, 
while even Bacon was influenced by him. 

The theory generally adopted by the English writers 
of the sixteenth century, as to the form of government 
which would present fewest dangers to the welfare of j 
the state, favored absolute monarchy. Machiavelli "^ 
had argued for this in T/ie Prince. To the great Floren- 
tine, who elsewhere advocated a republic, the mere 
form of government mattered Httle in comparison with 
the methods employed for attaining and holding power. 
Inasmuch as these means were best suited to abso- 

1 Vide E. Meyer, Machiavelli and the Elizabethan Drama, 
LiUerarhiiioruche Foj-schungen, 1897, p^^^^i^- 



296 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

lutism, his ideas seemed like the apology and 
defence of the absolute ruler. Friend and foe ahke, 
then, regarded him, not in the modern light of 
an Italian patriot, but as the exponent and advocate 
of a strong rule, regardless of the methods employed 
to obtain power. Absolute government was the goal 
to which his ideas led ; the Itahan political phi- 
losophy of the age was all in the direction df ab- 
solutism.-' This influence can be traced likewise in 
England, where it provided the theoretical foundation 
for the doctrine of the divine right of kings. 

The English arguments in favor of the absolute 
monarchy were generally reached after supposedly im- 
partial investigations into the different forms of govern- 
ment. Democracy and aristocracy were both discussed, 
and the advantages and disadvantages of each were 
weighed. In the ordinary division of every country 
between the nobility and commons, it was recog- 
nized that the desire of the one was always to rule, of 
the other not to be ruled. The question, therefore, at 
issue was whether the nobleman, endeavoring to main- 
tain his position, or the commoner, seeking to attain 
power for himself, was the more prejudicial to the wel- 
fare of the state. Or, to describe it in another way, 
whose desire was the greater, he who feared to lose 
what he already possessed, or he who, having nothing, 
had everything to gain? The desire of both was 
thought equal, although the effects were unequal ; for 
the man of property could easily obtain more, while 

1 Cf. Castiglione, Courtier^ p. 312. 



ITALIAN POLITICAL IDEAS IN ENGLAND 297 

he who had nothing could not acquire more without 
much labor. If, however, the one could grow rich 
without toil and the other found no ease in his riches, 
the world would become barbarous through lack of 
work. In labor, therefore, lay the foundation of all " civil 
pohcy." It was necessary both to force the needy 
to labor, and maintain the rights of those possess- 
ing property. As long as neither nobleman nor com- 
moner overstepped their bounds, so long were both 
of benefit to the state. If either should do so, 
the party of the commons would certainly prove the 
more dangerous on account of their ignorance and 
inconstancy. Moreover, it was impossible for many 
individuals long to preserve the same opinion. They 
might agree, but it would only be for a short time, and 
if once they lost their heads, no peril could be com- 
pared to the frenzy of the multitude. Their occa- 
sional success had come rather from good fortune 
than wisdom. In Thomas' mind, if the commons 
once attained power, they would destroy both the 
nobiUty and themselves.^ Others likewise shared this 
view of democracy. Its advantages, however, were also 
considered. Democracy observed perfect equahty and 
reduced the constitution of the state to the law of 
nature. Just as nature gave riches, honor and office 
to one man no more than to another, so popular gov- 
ernment tended to make all men equal without privi- 
lege or prerogative. The avarice of the rich and the 
insolence of "the great were supposed alike to be done 

1 Works, p. 157 et seg. 



298 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

away with by democracy. It fostered friendship and 
equality in human society, and permitted every one to 
enjoy liberty and equal justice without fear of tyranny 
or oppression. In spite of all this the faults of 
democracy were said to outweigh its advantages. 
No true equality could be observed under any system 
of popular government, since it was contrary to the 
law of nature, which made certain men wiser than 
others, decreeing that some were to command and 
others to obey. General equality, moreover, seemed 
impossible so long as there were magistrates and forms 
of government.^ The characteristic of a democracy 
was that "handicraftsmen" and the " baser sort " of 
people should manage public affairs. Its main drawback 
was that with it went envy of the rich, and an intense 
conceit accompanied the feehng it possessed of its own 
infalhbility. To describe democracy in a sentence, it 
seemed a " horrible monster of many heads without 
reason." ^ 

After the popular form of government had been 
removed from consideration, the question of aristocracy 
was approached. It was observed that the greed of 
the nobility resulted frequently in the oppression and 
suffering of the multitude. So long as the commons 
were in power, magistrates were careful to restrain 
the excesses of the nobility and advance public welfare. ' 
This condition would prove most beneficial if order 

1 Bedingfield, Florentine History of Machiavelli, preface, 

1595- 

2 Merbury, Brief Discourse, 1581, p. ii. 



ITALIAN POLITICAL IDEAS IN ENGLAND 299 

could always be maintained, and laws remained invio- 
late. What popular state, however, could point to 
freedom from sedition, violence and faction for thirty 
years, during which time the state had never been 
in danger of overthrow?^ The tendency to faction 
was among the greatest dangers of an aristocracy as well. 
The greater the number of rulers, the more factions 
and disputes there were,- while another peril lay in 
state secrets being often disclosed. 

The idea of government by parties is a compara- 
tively modern one. Even to the framers of the 
American Constitution the presence of party govern- 
ment appeared as one of the grave dangers which 
was to beset the young republic. Its presence in 
the mind of William Thomas made him incline toward 
possible tyranny in an absolute ruler, in preference 
to the danger of an overthrow of government through 
factional contests. His argument in favor of abso- 
lute monarchy was that a good prince, even though 
he diminished the power of the commons, preserved 
them, at the same time, from the tyranny of the 
nobiHty, acting toward the latter in the way they 
did to the multitude ; he was as much interested in 
governing well one class as the other. Contrariwise, 
even if he were a tyrant, yet his tyranny was preferable 
to that of the nobility. In the one case there were 
many tyrants, while in the other a single one would 
suffer no one but himself. The prince's tyranny was, 
therefore, to be preferred to that of an aristocracy, 

1 Thomas, op. cit., p. 166. ^ Bedingfield, loc. cii. 



300 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

and was infinitely better than the insolence of the multi- 
tude. The conclusion reached was that it was best for 
the prince to have supreme power. While he should 
not oppress the people, he ought to train them so 
that his very name would make them tremble.-' They 
should not even be allowed to talk of his actions and 
laws, since contempt and disobedience, the mother of 
all errors, would follow such criticism. 

John Leslie argued, likewise, in favor of the absolute 
power of one prince. " By the providence of one 
God, the whole world is ruled; so is the body of 
man by one soul governed ; a ship by one master is 
guided." One king stood for peace and unity, which 
all good citizens should wish for.^ Charles Merbury 
also tried to show that the rule of the lawful mon- 
arch was the best of all forms of government. His 
title should be by descent in blood royal. Election 
was open to many disadvantages, not only in the 
anarchy which necessarily existed before a new prince 
could be chosen, but in the fact that to satisfy his 
ambition in that direction a prince would even im- 
poverish a country. Another drawback was the possible 
election of an ahen. Italians, for instance, called all 
others barbarians, and it was readily conceivable that 
an Italian prince might try to change the language 
and customs of the country. The great advantage in 
^ a prince who had absolute power over all his subjects 

1 Thomas, p. 169. 

2 Treatise touching the Right of Mary Queen of Scotland^ 
1584, p. 65 et seq. 



ITALIAN POLITICAL IDEAS IN ENGLAND 30I 

was in sovereignty, which was without other limitation 
of time than his own life, and after that passed to his 
sons and heirs. He was accountable to no one, since 
he received his power only from God. He was sub- 
ject, therefore, to no other law than that of God. 
Whatever differed from the divine law he was not 
bound to obey. For the prince to be governed by 
the estates and peers of his realm would be most 
injurious to the whole idea of monarchy. Still less ought 
he to be subject to the common multitude, who, as 
they obtained greater authority, became both more 
insolent and disposed to rebellion. In all well-ad- 
ministered kingdoms, therefore, the commons had 
only the power of petition, the nobles of deliberation, 
and the prince alone of execution ; for " our Prince, 
who is the image of God on Earth, and as it were, 
Un Minor Esef?ipio of His almighty power, is not to 
acknowledge any greater than himself, nor any author- 
ity greater than his own." ^ The perfection of mon- 
archy was therefore to be found in the absolute rule 
of the monarch. Thomas Bedingfield, likewise, in his 
translation of Machiavelli, congratulated his compatriots 
that they were destined by God to live in the obedience 
of an hereditary royal monarchy, where the prince sub- 
mitted himself no less to the law of nature than he 
desired his subjects to be obedient to him. Following 
the idea expressed by Patrizi in his Civil Policy , which 
Richard Robinson had translated into English, and 
where an absolutism was declared to be the only 

1 Op. ciL, p. 43 et seq.; cf, Castiglione, p. 314. 



302 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

logical form of government, Bedingfield argued in favor 
of the monarch ruling alone, just as God ruled the 
entire universe. It was the best state of affairs, and 
all nations, it was said, were first so governed. Of all 
forms it was " the most reasonable, most natural, most 
honorable, and most necessary." ^ The power of the 
king was of direct advantage to his subjects ; witness 
the haughtiness of the Spaniard, who, although he 
might have no clothes on his back, was proud simply 
because his master was king of Spain. On the other 
hand, said Merbury, it was only necessary to look at 
the Italian, who had lost " the light and dignity of 
his nation." It was no small comfort for the English 
gentleman abroad to be able to sit side by side, the 
equal of the proudest Spaniard and most boastful 
Frenchman. 

Other writers also argued in favor of the absolute 
power of the sovereign. John Leslie, who cited 
Machiavelli, Contarini and Polydore Vergil, described 
the great difference between the king's right and that 
of all others : the king alone was not subject to the 
common law of the realm; nor could any law bind 
the crown. ^ 

It is remarkable that the writers in favor of the abso- 
lute power of the king were all connected in some 
way with Italy. William Thomas had been the greatest 
EngHsh authority on everything Italian. Charles Mer- 
bury prefaced his book with an Italian dedication to 
Queen Elizabeth, and added to it a collection of Italian 
1 Bedingfield, loc. cit. ^ Treatise ^ p. 21 3, et seq. 



ITALIAN POLITICAL IDEAS IN ENGLAND 303 

proverbs. John Leslie quoted from several Italian 
authorities, while Thomas Bedingfield gave his ideas 
on the subject as an introduction to a translation of 
MachiavelH's History of Florence. Englishmen igno- 
rant of Italian could even read in Patrizi, that as there 
was but one God for all creation, so there should be 
but one prince. All these arguments were constructed 
on similar plans. There was always the same rational, 
apparently unbiassed, historical examination into the 
different forms of government ; and always the same 
preference toward absolutism as the most logical form, 
since it bestowed sovereignty on the most worthy. A 
growing tendency existed to establish its foundation 
on the divine right of kings. The ancient system of 
checks on the royal authority was disappearing from 
the political philosophy of the day ; the sovereign was 
to be one and absolute in his power, accountable 
only to God. 

The Italian political ideas of that age were in 
the direction of absolute monarchy. This influence 
can be traced in English legal thought in the work 
of Alberico Gentile, who came to England in 1580, and 
seven years later was appointed Regius professor of 
civil law at Oxford. Even before that, however, he 
was consulted by the government as to what course to 
pursue in the case of the Spanish ambassador who had 
been detected plotting against Elizabeth ; it was by his 
advice that Mendoza was merely ordered to leave the 
country. He later took up his residence in London 
with a view to forensic practice. His work brought 



304 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

new life to the dead body of civil law/ and gave a fresh 
impulse to the study of Roman and international law, 
which, before Grotius, he attempted to establish on a j 
non-theological basis.^ His De Jure Belli combined 
for the first time, it is said, the practical discussions 
of Cathohc theologians with the Protestant theory of 
natural law. It criticised and systematized the rules 
for the conduct of warfare, and has been called a legal 
commentary on the events of the sixteenth century. 
In addition to this he wrote an apology for Machia- 
velli,^ and also a treatise favoring the supreme power 
of the prince, which he dedicated to James the First.^ 
Herein he tried to prove the prince to be an absolute 
monarch, and have arbitrary power over the lives and 
estates of his people. Since the people had conferred 
on him all their rule and power, he need acknowledge 
no superior but God, whose will was sufficient reason, 
and whose reason was absolute law. The prince pos- 
sessed and enjoyed dominion over everything ; he was 
above the civil law, and only under the law of God, of 
nature and of nations. He was cautioned, however, 
to use his power justly, otherwise trouble would follow. 
This book by Gentile was not many years later to call 
forth an indignant Puritan refutation.^ " The author's 

1 Fulbeck, Direction to the Study of Law ^ 1620. 

2 // Principe, Preface by Burd, p. 63. 

^ De legationibus libri tres, London, 1585. 

* Regales Disputationes Tres de Potestate Regis Absolutis, 
1605. 

^ England'' s Monarch, or a coitviction and refutation by the 
Conwion Law of those false principles and insinuating flatteries 



ITALIAN POLITICAL IDEAS IN ENGLAND 305 

name is Albericus, . . . what countryman I know not, but 
his name as also his principles seem to speak him a 
stranger by birth." The ideas underlying absolute 
monarchy were not English ; their root was foreign, 
and British soil did not prove congenial to their 
growth. In most cases Machiavelli was regarded as 
their promoter and prime mover ; for his English 
readers of that time abstracted from his writings only 
the arguments favoring the absolute rule of the prince. 
To sixteenth century Europe, Machiavelli represented 
something entirely different from what we see in him 
to-day ; to the men of the Renaissance, he seemed the 
apologist of tyranny, the teacher of subtle methods of 
how to enslave a free people. He was in fact known 
rather by the books of his opponents than his own 
writings, which were not translated till later. Inno- 
cent Gentillet, a French Huguenot, wrote the most 
celebrated of these denunciations, and fixed on Machia- 
velU the responsibility for the massacre of Saint Bar- 
tholomew, pointing out' the supposed influence of the 
great Florentine on the politics and statecraft of 
the time. From this book, most subsequent denun- 
ciations were taken. In its Enghsh rendering^ the 
translator referred to Machiavelli taking faith away from 
princes, authority and majesty from laws, and liberty 

of Albericus. . . . Together with a general confutation . . . of 
all absolute monarchy, London, 1644. 

1 A Discourse upon the means of well -governing a kingdom 
against Nicholas Machiavell the Florentine (by I. Gentillet). 
Translated into the English by Simon Patericke, London, 1602. 

X 



306 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

from the people, and called his book " this deadly poison 
sent out of Italy." A like opinion of Machiavelli was 
then current in England. Contemporary literature 
was full of it. Men judged him rather from hearsay 
than by his actual writings, though they too were 
known. A whole school grew up, whose conception 
of statecraft, resting on a common basis of falsehood 
and fraud, exaggerated his ideas.^ Carefully selected 
passages in Gentillet further convinced Englishmen of 
his wickedness. His influence with the dramatists, espe- 
cially Greene and Marlowe, will be considered later, 
but in ordinary life and conversation his very name 
passed into a byword. Some idea of his general repu- 
tation may perhaps be obtained from a letter of advice 
written by a friend to a young Englishman in Italy ^ of 
how best to profit from his travels ; after urging him 
to study the Italian language and civil law, he advised 
him to read the Discourse on Livy, by one whom he 
called the " vile, treacherous, devilish person whom 
you would call him devil is Machiavelli." He should 
remember, however, that to be called by his name 
was a disgrace and an infamy. Machiavelli's influence 
was thus, in part, an imaginary one, many things 
being attributed to him which he never advocated. 
At the same time, the new spirit of rational inquiry 
in state affairs, the historic sense and illustration, and 
even the leaning toward absolutism, can all be traced 

1 Janet, Science Politique, I, 542. 

2 All Souls Library (Oxford), Ms. CLV, f. 77 b, dated 
27th February, 1599. 



ITALIAN POLITICAL IDEAS IN ENGLAND 307 

to the influence of his writings. His popularity in 
England was shown in other ways : Gabriel Harvey, 
fresh from Cambridge, asked for the books of " the 
great founder and master of pohcies," ^ claiming that 
his works had supplanted all others ; and the Prince 
and Discourses, it is said, were both printed in London 
at this time.^ 

Ill 

Nannini's Civil Considerations, a treatise on prac- 
tical government based on Guicciardini, was only one 
of the numerous Italian books then translated into 
English. More important than the problems it dis- 
cussed, and the working side of the state it pre- 
sented, in preference to its theoretical ideal, was its 
new method of treatment by historical illustrations. 
Questions were put in their relation to actual life, and 
not the ideal possibilities they might contain. 

Another book of this, period in which the influence 
of the Italian method can be found was Sir Thomas 
Smith's work on England, written on a plan similar to 
Contarini's Venice. Smith, it should be remembered, 
had studied under Ajciati, the reformer of civil law, 
and listened to Accoramboni and Rubeo, at Padua, 
where he graduated a doctor of laws. The book 
he was later to write showed the power of system- 
atic analysis so characteristic of the Italian treatises 
of the time. In discussing the merits of difl"erent 

1 Letter-Book, p. 1 74 et seq. 

2 Nineteenth Century, December, 1896, p. 915. 



308 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

forms of government, he gave the quaUties and defects 
of each, considering that state the best which was most 
in accordance with the nature of its people. 

The actual influence of the Italian historical 
method was gathered not only from books but 
from men; Tito Livio of Forli and Polydore Vergil 
oifered early instances of Italian historians in Eng- 
land, and later Pietro Bizari came over as well. 
On the other hand, Nicholas Sanders, an English 
controversiahst and historian, remained long in Rome, 
where he lived under the protection of Cardinal 
Morone. 

The Italian influence in William Thomas was evident 
in his historical work. In the History of Italy ^ before 
describing the sights of each city came an account of 
the place, written, as he frankly stated,^ by comparing 
together the works of difl"erent authors ; he borrowed 
especially from Machiavelli's account of Florence. 
Machiavelli's history was later translated byBedingfield," 
who prefaced the book with his arguments in favor of 
absolute monarchy. The history itself equalled or ex- 
celled, in his judgment, any hitherto written, not only in 
the method of presentation, but on account of the ob- 
servations of the author, who left aside all partiality and j 
flattery and tried only to arrive at the truth. His method 
of writing was to set forth the causes and effects of 
every action rather than to extoll or condemn the per- 

1 Op. cit., p. 140. 

2 The Florentine History, translated by T[homas] B[eding-| 
field], 1595. ' 



ITALIAN POLITICAL IDEAS IN ENGLAND 309 

sons of whom he wrote. Other ItaHan histories were 
also translated into English ; Guicciardini's Wars of 
Italy, by Geoffrey Fenton,^ and histories of Portugal,^ 
of the Low Countries,^ and of the Turks and Persians.* 
Examples of the manner in which history should be 
written were presented in these works ; not only were 
they chronicles of events, but descriptions as well of 
the religion, mihtary strength, government, colonies 
and revenues of the countries they described. 

The Italian philosophy of history and method of 
historical writing was illustrated in a selection from the 
works of Francesco Patrizi and Jacopo Acontio,^ the 
latter an Italian refugee in England, and one of Bacon's 
forerunners in the method of experimental research. 
This book, though almost unknown, was one of the 

^ The History of Guicciardin. . . . Reduced into English by 
Geoffrey Fenton, London, 1579. 

^ The History of the Ufiiting of the Kingdom of Portugal to 
the Crown of Castile . . . translated by Edward Blount (?) from 
the Italian of Girolamo Conestaggio, London, 1600. 

^ The Description of the Low Countries . . . out of the history 
of Lodovico Guicciardini by Th. Danett, London, 1593. 

* The History of the Wars between the Turks and the Per- 
sians, written in Italian by John Thomas Minadoi, and trans- 
lated into English by Abraham Hartwell, London, 1595. The 
Ottoman of Lazaro Soranzo . . . translated out of Italian into 
English by Abraham Hartwell, London, 1603. 

^ The True Order and Alethod of writing and reading 
Histories according to the Precepts of Francisco Patricio and 
Accontio Tridenti)io, troo Italian writers ... by Thomas Blunde- 
ville, London, 1574. The manuscript of Acontio, which has 
never been published, is preserved at the Record Office, London 
(Dom. Sen, Vol. XXXIV, Aug., 1564). It was dedicated by 
him to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. 



y }uTlV 



3IO ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

most remarkable of its kind in the sixteenth century, 
foreshadowing, in its ideas, so much of what is com- 
monly thought the creation of our own times and the 
modern scientific method. It was an analysis of his- 
tory, the study of which was looked upon as a prepara- 
tion for princes, to guard them against errors. History 
was treated from the point of view that everything had 
its cause, and every cause a beginning, early growth, cli- 
max, dechne and end. In considering any question, 
therefore, one ought to begin by noticing its relations. 
Four things especially should always be kept in mind, 
trade, public revenues, armament and the form of 
government. 

The argument briefly stated was that history was 
made up of deeds done either by a state, or against a 
state, and such deeds arose in turn, either from some 
outward cause, as force or fortune, or inward cause, 
like reason or desire. Every action was therefore done 
by some person, for some cause in time and place, with 
means and instruments. This was true regardless of 
the magnitude of the action. There was always a 
principal doer, over and above the inferior doers ; 
likewise a principal cause ruling inferior causes, and a 
principal time, means and instrument. Such were 
the outward conditions of an action; but within it, 
also, there existed possibility, occasion and success. 
Regarding the doer, both his position and his ability 
were to be considered, the first dependent upon his 
family and country, the second on his power, skill 
and industry. No man ought for an instant to imagine 



ITALIAN POLITICAL IDEAS IN ENGLAND 3 II 

he could achieve success unless he possessed some of 
these qualities. Even emotions had their final causes, 
for the object of wrath was revenge, and of mercy, 
help and comfort. 

" Those whose lives ought to be chronicled " were 
also considered. In writing a biography one ought 
first to give the hero's family and country, and then 
search for the principle which moved him in his under- 
takings ; whether an outward one, such as destiny or 
fortune ; or inward, as by choice or nature. It was also 
necessary for the biographer to determine the origin 
of that principle — whether it was passion, custom, or 
reason. Such actions as were forced by outward cir- 
cumstances deserved neither praise nor blame, and 
were indeed only to be mentioned so far as they 
brought out or hindered others springing from inward 
causes, which alone were worthy of description. The 
historian ought, therefore, to analyze the cause and 
reason of each action, if it was by choice, and to 
what extent education on the part of the doer had 
modified it; for education both confirmed a man in 
his bringing up, framed his inclinations, and trained 
his mind. The historian's aim should be to show 
the influence of environment and its exemplification 
through outward deeds. The hero's personality ought 
to be considered, however, not only for his deeds and 
speeches, which were, after all, only the result of the 
man, but in other respects as well. 

All public actions everywhere depended on three 
things, peace, sedition and war. Peace existed 



312 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

both in outward action and inward frame of mind. 
It had for its proper foundation the contentment of 
citizens and was broken only by some inward cause, | 
such as famine, the denial to classes of their just rights, 
or else by war. Analyses of revolutions and wars, with 
an account of the great conspiracies of the sixteenth 
century, further illustrated this discussion. 

It was considered to be the duty of the historian to 
relate everything without either adding to it or taking 
away from it. Since every action resulted from some 
person's activity the doer ought to be mentioned, with 
the reasons which led him to undertake it ; and when 
several had been engaged in it, the parts should be 
kept in such relation as to form together one simple 
action. 

Regarding the order and method to be observed in 
reading history, those eager to learn ought to under- 
stand the object and purpose for which it was written. 
There were three principal causes : first, to acknowl- 
edge the providence of God ; secondly, in order that 
wisdom might be learned from the example of the wise ; 
and lastly, it was intended to lead men to greater good, 
and similarly to shun evil. Nothing, it was thought, 
removed one further from the desire of evil than to see 
the punishment of the wicked, and history exposed 
this clearly to the world. History made men wiser 
both to direct their own actions and to advise others. 
It was its proper fruit that it should be of benefit alike 
to the reader and to his country. Regarding those 
who, having spent their lifetime in study, knew noth- 



ITALIAN POLITICAL IDEAS IN ENGLAND 313 

ing beyond the genealogies and pedigrees of kings 
and emperors, one knew not whether more to pity or 
deride them. 

This historical method has fallen into undeserved 
oblivion. It was in many ways a remarkable work, 
clearly demonstrating the influence of environment 
on the individual, and of man as the product of 
his age. It showed, too, the analytical and systematiz- 
ing tendency of the Italians in the sixteenth century. 
In history, as in other things, Italy gave the model, 
from which the other nations of Europe could build. 

IV 

In the sixteenth century Italians did much to teach 
Englishmen the writing of history, on a different plan 
from that of the mediaeval chronicles. Polydore 
Vergil's History of England was especially influential 
and may be said to have been the first of the long 
chain of English histories which have since appeared. 
The translations of Guicciardini and Machiavelli gave 
to Elizabethan historians the best of models and 
examples, while Acontio and Patrizi's philosophy 
and critique furnished an analysis of the methods of 
writing history. 

In considering the influence of Italy on England in 
the political thought of the Renaissance, it should be 
looked for in the intellectual substructure and theo- 
retical foundation on which political action was based. 
The pendulum had far to swing from the direction of 
feudal ideas to that of absolute monarchy. Between 



314 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

the Plantagenets and the second of the Stuarts the 
line of the Tudors bridged the interval, and their rule 
prepared the way for the despotic attempt of Charles 
the First. The absolute power of the prince had 
begun to be wielded by Edward the Fourth in the | 
earliest days of the Renaissance. In many ways 
Henry the Seventh laid the firm foundations for the 
monarchy. Its intellectual justification, however, was 
still lacking in England. It was this which was sup- 
plied by Italy and Italian thought. In practical life 
and in the world of action it was from Italy that 
Tiptoft brought the Paduan Law, and the ruthlessness 
of his methods was worthy of the example set by the 
Italian despots of the fifteenth century. It was an 
ItaHan, too, who could sympathize with his ideas and 
task in forming the new monarchy, that the first of the 
Tudors chose to be his friend and biographer. In his 
love of art and splendor, in his encouragement of 
learning, as in his methods, Wolsey had much in com- 
mon with the great Italian cardinals of the Renaissance. 
A little later it was Thomas Cromwell, a reader of 
Machiavelli, who crushed the last power of the church 
that still dared assert itself in opposition to the authority 
of the king. 

In the world of ideas at the same time Italy sup- 
plied the material for the apologists of the Tudor mon- 
archy. Machiavelli offered, indeed, a ready reply to 
all who searched his works for arguments. His calm, 
dispassionate statements, his cool judgments, lent 
themselves to many constructions. While, in the six- 



ITALIAN POLITICAL IDEAS IN ENGLAND 315 

teenth and seventeenth centuries at least, the great 
Florentine was a much mahgned man, at the same 
time there can be little doubt that the men of the Re- 
naissance found in his works a mine of arguments in 
behalf of the absolute power of the state ; and to Eng- 
hshmen then the state meant the monarchy. Thomas, 
Leshe, Merbury and Bedingfield, students of Italian 
statecraft, all showed his influence in their writings in 
favor of the absolute power of the prince. His histori- 
cal method, his balance and judgment, they adopted ; 
but after weighing all considerations, their inclinations 
led them toward absolute rule as the most perfect form 
of government. Other Italians, too, whose works were 
translated into English or written in England, all 
favored it. The revival of antiquity had brought with 
it the belief that the power of the sovereign should be 
absolute, and to Englishmen unused to the Italian city 
repubhcs and other forms of government, sovereignty 
meant, therefore, the power of the prince. How alien 
and foreign this was, in fact, to their own ideas was 
not to be realized until the time of the Enghsh revo- 
lution. ^'^"' 



CHAPTER VIII 
THE ITALIAN INFLUENCE IN ENGLISH POETRY 



The Renaissance, in its first intention at least, was 
largely an effort to imitate the life and conditions of 
antiquity. That it became otherwise, that, far from 
being the servile imitation of another age, it was to 
embody a great force in remoulding the civiHzed 
world, from which almost every modern idea may be 
said to trace its origin, was largely due to the influence 
of Italy. The Renaissance in the countries beyond 
the Alps was often, in more ways than one, a continua- 
tion of the movement begun on ItaHan soil. Erasmus 
and Holbein, Lope de Vega and Montaigne, Camoens 
and even Shakespeare, owed each a debt of gratitude 
^to the art, the letters and the civilization of Italy. J 

In Enghsh poetry this ItaHan influence was of a 
twofold nature. On the one hand, it taught new forms 
and stood for precision, balance and polish ; it brought 
in a greater consciousness of the poet's art and dig- 
nity, and demanded on his part a deeper learning and 
scholarship. On the other, it created a fresh atmos- 
phere for the poet's hfe. The new spirit of the 
Renaissance in Italy, by removing existing barriers, 

316 



ITALIAN INFLUENCE IN ENGLISH POETRY 317 

enriched the hfe of man, while, by a similar process, 
his nature felt itself freed from all moral restraints. 
Italy was thus destined to teach measure and art in 
form, while in spirit it stood for unbridled Hcense and 
excess. Its aesthetic side taught a new art of verse to 
English poets ; its life created a romantic atmosphere 
for English dramatists. 

It is somewhat significant that the father of EngHsh 
poetry was the first to express the influence of Italy, 
(^haucer led his nation in realizing that a new age had 
dawned. He had been the first in England to read the 
Tuscan poets ; his writings, like Petrarch's, were the 
first to be freed from theological purpose. He fore- 
shadowed, though long in advance of his age, the 
influence which was later to be felt. The glimmer 
of the new era he awakened disappeared once more 
after his death. His successors, Gower and Lydgate, 
and later the Scotch Chaucerians, although familiar 
with a few of the ItaHan writers, failed to appreciate 
their true spirit. Petrarch they regarded as a scholar, 
Boccaccio as a teacher. During the entire fifteenth 
century this condition prevafled, the Tuscan poets 
usually being valued for nothing else.^ The real sig- 
nificance of the new poetry could not yet be grasped 
beyond the Alps. It was necessary for Englishmen to 
be educated to the point where the great Tuscan poets 

1 Although two English bishops, Hallam and Bubwith, meet- 
ing John of Serravalle at the Council of Constance, induced him 
to write a commentary on Dante's CoTH?jicdia. — E. Moore, 
Dante and his Early Biographers, London, 1890, p. 65. 



3l8 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

would be able to make an appeal to their taste and 
understanding. Neither Stephen Hawes nor Skelton 
ever really felt the spirit of the Renaissance, or 
saw Petrarch otherwise than as a "famous clerk." ^ 
Poetry remained backward when all else progressed. It 
was time for it, however, to leave the sterile traditions of 
the Middle Ages. At the court of Henry the Eighth, 
with its affectations of foreign fashions, its love of Italian 
learning, Italian music, and Italian art, it was scarcely 
conceivable that poets alone should repeat allegorical 
expressions then dead and meaningless. Latin human- 
istic poetry had already been cultivated by Flemming, 
Free and other English scholars, with fair success, 
while numerous Italian residents at the Tudor court 
also practised it. It was only natural that poetical 
forms more in harmony with the spirit of the age 
should be attempted. Italy, which in scholarship, art 
and courtly life offered the example to Europe, was 
to do so in poetry as well. 

The cultivation of Latin verse had been among 
the earhest labors of Italian humanists. The more 
gifted and less pedantic among them, like Poli- 
tian, wrote poetry also in the vernacular. Enghsh 
scholars, by no means so talented as their masters, 
left this for courtiers to do. At the court, therefore, 
the new poetry grew up, just as the new learning 
had prospered at the university. In each case the 
limited sphere of its surroundings was responsible for 
the slow development ; scholarship, for instance, had 

1 Skelton, I, 377. 



ITALIAN INFLUENCE IN ENGLISH POETRY 319 

taken fully seventy-five years to succeed. Its final 
triumph was marked at the same time by the intro- 
duction of the Italian verse forms into English poetry, 
even though these were not to take firm hold until the 
reign of Elizabeth. 

Navagero's famous conversation with Boscan re- 
mains unparalleled in the pages of English literature. 
A number of circumstances might lead one, how- 
ever, to suppose that it was something more than 
chance which first induced Wyatt and Surrey to begin 
their work of poetical reform. The Italian humanist 
poets, resident at the EngUsh court, perhaps, en- 
couraged it. Silvestro Gigli, Adrian de Castello and 
Andrea Ammonio, all of whom were poets, must have 
known Wyatt. Ammonio, especially, who lived for a 
time in More's household, was a member of a liter- 
ary coterie in London, which included other Italians 
and several of the Oxford men who had studied 
abroad.^ jThe new poetry was distinctively a product 
of the court in the beginning, flourishing there and 
nowhere else. In Italy, every courtier had been 
a poet, and every poet a courtier. Castiglione, who 
had himself visited England, laid it down as a rule 
for his courtier to cultivate and polish his native 
language. " Let him much exercise himself in poets 
. . . and also in writing both rhyme and prose, and 
especially in this our vulgar tongue." - 

The new poetry in England was to be full of courtly 
feelings and ideas. It was essentially a literature not 

1 Giustiniani, II, 68. ^ Courtier^ p. 85. 



320 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGL.\ND 

of the people at large, but of a narrow circle. A dis- 
tinct connection existed, however, between scholars 
and poets. Several of the former had left Oxford for 
London, where a larger field awaited their activitiesv 
Sir Thomas More, himself a Latin poet of eminence, 
was high in favor with the king. Poets and scholars 
alike had similar ambitions, and in different ways ac- 
complished the same task. John Leland, the royal 
antiquarian, linked together the two groups. Leland 
had known Wyatt ever since the two had been together 
at Cambridge, and on his death he wrote a threnody, 
dedicated to Surrey, in which he praised him espe- 
cially for his use of the English language in poetry, 
regarding him as the equal of Dante and Petrarch.^ 

The task of the courtly poets was not an easy one. 
Vagueness and diffuseness, prolixity, tautology and 
lack of taste had been among the commonest errors 
of the earlier school. These faults were not cor- 
rected immediately. The followers of Skelton and 
Hawes did not cease to write after the new Italian 
forms had been introduced. Their importance, how- 
ever, was greatly diminished, while at the same time 
the dignity of poetry was reestablished once more ; the 
mere fact that it could flourish at court and be 
taken up by favorites of the king was to act power- 

^ NcBfiicB in mortem Thomce Viati, 1 542. 
Anglus per Italis 
" Bella suum merito Jactei Florentia Dantem^, 
Regia Petrarchce carmina Rojjia probet. 
His non inferior pairio sermone Viatus 
Eloquii secum qui decus omne tulit" 



ITALIAN INFLUENCE IN ENGLISH POETRY 32 1 

fully in its favor. There sprang up, in England, "a 
new company of courtly-makers, of whom Sir Thomas 
Wvatt, the elder, and Henry, Earl of Surrey, were the 
t\ o chieftains, who, having travelled into Italy and 
there tasted the sweet and stately measures and style 
of the Italian poesy, as novices newly crept out of 
the schools of Dante, Arioste, and Petrarch, they 
greatly polished our rude and homely manner of vulgar 
poesy, from that it had been before, and for that 
cause may justly be said to be the first reformers of 
our English metre and style." ^ 

The great importance of Wyatt and Surrey was in 
being the first to make use in English of the new 
Italian poetic forms of the Renaissance. Their task 
in literature was analogous to that of Grocyn and 
Linacre in scholarship. Yet the positions of Wyatt 
and Surrey in poetry were by no means the same. 
There can be as little doubt that Wyatt was the in- 
novator as that Surrey was the greater poet of the two. 
Wyatt was born in 1503, thirteen years before the Earl 
of Surrey. It is scarcely hkely that the older man 
should learn from the younger one. Wyatt, moreover, 
had travelled in Italy,- Surrey never did. In addition, 
John Leland, in some memorial verses on Wyatt, re- 
garded Surrey in the light of his poetic successor. He 
wrote of him : — 

Perge Howarde precor, virttcte refer re Viatum, 
Discerisque iiite, clarissima gloria stirpis. 

1 Puttenham, p. 74. 

2 Vide article in Gentleman's Magazine, September, 1850. 



322 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND ! 

Last of all, the technique of their poetry proves f 
Wyatt's to have been the earlier. In every respect, 
Surrey's work marked a distinct advance on that of 
his predecessor and master. Wyatt was indeed the 
father of modern English poetry ; Surrey, the greatest 
of his immediate successors. Wyatt was the master 
whose verse marked the beginning of the influence 
of Petrarch in the poetry of the English Renaissance. 

II 

One of the most remarkable things in the history 
of culture was that the influence of a single individual 
should endure through centuries, and yet change 
entirely in its nature. Petrarch to his contemporaries 
had been first and foremost a humanist. More than 
any one else he had brought into disfavor the old 
scholastic learning, and ushered in the new age, which 
revived the knowledge of the ancient world. Later 
generations, however, were to praise him chiefly for 
his sonnets which fitted in with the Platonic tendencies 
of the age. Petrarch, who laid his title to immortality 
on his longer Latin poems, was to have it granted to 
him for that which he claimed to value least, the poetic 
recollections of his love for Laura. 

Petrarch nevertheless made the sonnet form es- 
sentially his own, even if he did not create it. It was 
to find popularity awaiting it, not only in Italy, but in 
France, Spain, Portugal and England as well. Perhaps 
its rigid form and construction, as much as the spirit 
it breathed, appealed to the classical tendencies of 



ITALIAN INFLUENCE IN ENGLISH POETRY 323 

the period. The long, rambling poems of the Middle 
Ages were no longer in favor after the literature of 
antiquity had become familiar to every one. Rem- 
nants of the old mediaeval spirit still remained in many 
different ways, as, for instance, in the expression of 
the lover's absolute devotion to his lady. The out- 
ward form, however, had been entirely recast; the 
style and metre especially became more poHshed. 
The rude language of former times no longer sufficed 
to express the subtler shades of meaning, the abundant 
conceits and imagery, and the ingenuity, considered 
necessary. Petrarch furnished the great model and 
example for the new poetry. On the one hand the 
novelty and technical perfection of his art, on the 
other the supposed depth of his passion, along with 
its Platonic ideas, made him the model for the court 
poets of Western Europe, who, trained in both the 
new humanism and the ancient spirit of chivalry, 
were eager to reform and refine the poetry of their 
native land. 

Such poetry represented an ingenious effort to write 
of love without any true emotion of the soul, to pretend 
an ardent passion for an imaginary mistress, and relate 
in verse the story of a fictitious intrigue conducted 
along certain lines established by immovable tradi- 
tion.^ It was only necessary for an abstract idea of 
love to be embodied in a sensible image ; to do this 
successfully, ingenuity and skill were far more essen- 
tial than either learning or imagination. The usual 

1 Vide M. Fieri, Petrarque et Ronsard, p. 88. 



324 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 



1 



process was to take the ideas of Petrarch, and, imitat- 
ing the sources of his inspiration and poetic phrase- 
ology, to reproduce the mannerisms. Petrarch's original 
selection of the sonnet form had kept him within a 
narrow range of ideas and feelings. It had obliged him 
to repeat himself and make the most of his talents, in 
dwelling at length and without too great monotony on 
the relentless heart-burnings he experienced. The nar- 
row range prescribed for the emotions required variety 
in the metaphors by which they were presented, and 
this brought with it necessary exaggeration. The 
imitators of his school could easily discern through it 
all the method of his composition, with its affectation 
of ideas, its refinement of feeling and exaggeration of 
style. They could borrow this with the acquired ease 
of skilful rhetoricians. The main themes could thus 
be preserved, and at the same time new details added, 
while the methods of expression could be varied either 
in the direction of over refinement or exaggeration, 
thus escaping reproaches of plagiarism. Still another 
way for imitators was to take selected phrases from 
the sonnets, and, adding to them from their store, 
develop them in their own way. 

Petrarchism included within itself certain quite dif- 
ferent sides. Its idea of love, for instance, with 
its expression of austerity and sensuality in one, 
was little else than the literary survival of the past 
chivalric age, which found its noblest ideal in the Pla- 
tonic affection for woman, regarding love as purify- 
ing the heart, uplifting the soul, and the fountain- 



ftonvi&Syf.i 




///r '' '^/// rJ ■ f//y/r'/// /'^ ■ nf/fff'//. 



ITALIAN INFLUENCE IN ENGLISH POETRY 325 

head, in a word, of all virtue. It was a revival which 
proved all the more popular, since, in its outward 
form at least, chivalry had become an amusement 
of the court, while it was aided by the reaction which 
had set in against Aristotle and the codified system of 
courtly love, and favored the Petrarchan expression 
of Platonic ideas. 

The suffering of love, the timidity of the lover and 
the permanence of his passion were always expressed. 
In addition, there were certain tricks of phraseology 
and style which were later exaggerated by the fol- 
lowers of Petrarch. A straining after effect, an abuse 
of conceits and ingenuities, of antitheses and puns, 
were characteristic of this style. Its better side, how- 
ever, could be found in the refinement, conciseness, 
polish and dignity which, especially beyond the Alps, 
distinguished it from previous poetry. Last of all, it 
offered endless opportunities for skill in versification 
and the technical development of the poet's art. 

Wyatt and Surrey were " the two chief lanterns of 
light" to all who in that century wrote poetry in 
England. In the words of Puttenham, " their conceits 
were lofty, their styles stately, . . . their terms proper, 
their metre sweet and well proportioned, in all imitat- 
ing very naturally and studiously this Master Francis 
Petrarch." ^ Yet the verse of neither was a slavish 
imitation of Petrarch. Wyatt's fresher English mind 
rebelled at the repetition of meaningless conceits, and 
at the same time the language he made use of was 

1 Puttenham, op. cit., p. 76. 



326 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

too imperfect a medium to convey with accuracy the 
subtler shades of meaning. The form he took from 
Petrarch, and he translated, either entirely or in part,^ 
many of his sonnets, though rarely literally. His at- 
tempts to render adequately the master's conceits 
usually ended in failure; recognizing this, he often 
began his verse with a translation, and, realizing his 
inabihty to go on, developed fresh thoughts of his 
own.^ In other sonnets he borrowed only a few 
lines from the Italian. It cannot be said that he 
felt at home in the rigid form he had selected ; the 
self-imposed restraints were too many for his technical 
skill and proficiency ; nor could he reproduce the con- 
struction of the successive steps which built up the 
Petrarchan sonnet. The busy hfe he led afforded 
him, perhaps, but little leisure to polish his verses. 
They are rarely smooth, and are in striking contrast 
to the polished lines of his master. Wyatt's imagery, 
moreover, was generally simpler and less involved 
than that of Petrarch. He could not compare with 
him in skill, and the conceits he attempted were 
clumsy and ill-fitting as a rule. Even the sonnet form 
he reproduced but feebly, the rhymes being often bad 
and the metrical effects by no means easy. He was 
unable to handle it properly, while his translation 
was inexact and his technique poor. He differed 
further from his model in closing the sonnet with a 

1 Cf. Wyatt, Sonnets i, 2, 4, 5, 9, ii, 13, 14, 18, 19, 20, 22, 
24, 31, with Petrarch, Sonnets 109, 61, 220, 136, 81, 12, 104, 
156* 44» 99> 19. 188, 229, 120. 

2 Cf. Wyatt, Sonnet 4, with Petrarch, 220. 



ITALIAN INFLUENCE IN ENGLISH POETRY 327 

couplet as nearly as possible epigrammatic in form, 
instead of employing the usual Petrarchan ending.^ 
In all likelihood both Wyatt and Surrey were quite 
unaware of the almost sacred spirit in which the 
Italian poets approached the sonnet form. They 
probably confused it with the popular strambotto'^ ; 
the mistake they made resulted, however, in setting 
a new English example which was followed by the 
Elizabethans. 

In spite of Wyatt's deficiencies and lack of origi- 
nality, his position in the history of English poetry is 
of the greatest importance. Many have surpassed him 
in genius, few in influence. Although Wyatt's native 
strength and lofty ideal of patriotism will always 
endear him to lovers of English poetry, his historical 
significance came rather from his having been the first 
English Petrarchist. His study of the Italians had 
taught him that they alone offered new hope for 
poetry, and their forms and style he tried to repro- 
duce in his own language. To use Leland's words, 
the Enghsh tongue, rude and rhythmless before, had 
been forced by him to acknowledge the master's file. 
He was the real teacher of the " courtly makers," who 
learned the new forms from his example.^ Such men 

1 Mellin de Saint Gelays makes occasional use of the couplet 
ending. 

2 Nuova Antologia, July i, 1895, article by De Marchi. 

* " Anglica lingua fiiit rudis et sine nomine rhythmus 
Nunc limam agnoscit, docte Viati tuam . . . 

Nobilitas dedicit te praceptore Britamia 
Carmina pro varios scribere posse viodos^ — NcBnice. 



328 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 



1 



as Sir Francis Bryan and Lords Rochford, Vaux, 
Morley, and especially the Earl of Surrey, were to 
carry on to triumph the work he had begun. 

Little is known of Surrey's Hterary surroundings. 
The legend which inspired Nash and Drayton, of his 
travels in Italy and his knightly challenge while in 
Florence to all who dared dispute the beauty of the 
fair Geraldine, has been proved without foundation. 
Almost the only certainty is that he himself was never 
in Italy. His acquaintance with Petrarch and his school 
came, therefore, from such men as Wyatt and Leland, 
who had returned from foreign travels, and perhaps 
also from some of the numerous Italians at the court. 
The romantic interest which attaches itself to his life 
is due in large measure to his surroundings, youth and 
his untimely death. 

As a poet, however, he showed far greater readiness 
and ease in technique than did Wyatt ; he was not bur- 
dened by the form, nor did the language present such 
irksome restraints to him. The medium lay there 
before him ; it was his task to give beauty where pre- 
viously there had been none, and lend to it style, dis- 
tinction and polish. It is only necessary to compare 
his sonnet translations from Petrarch with correspond- 
ing ones by Wyatt to see the difference between the 
two and Surrey's artistic superiority. The latter fell 
in better with the Petrarchan tradition. Geraldine 
was his Laura, while Wyatt cannot be said to have 
had any ideal mistress. In form of thought, as well 
as in matter, Surrey was more akin to Petrarch, 



ITALIAN INFLUENCE IN ENGLISH POETRY 329 

although in metrical structure he does not follow 
him so closely. Generally a single dominant idea 
runs through his poems, and around it are grouped 
kindred thoughts and images, often ending in an epi- 
gram, the same motive being repeated in different 
forms. The various moods and inconsistencies of 
love were among his favorite subjects, and these he 
expressed with a beauty and distinction gathered from 
the Italian. Just as Wyatt, by introducing the Italian 
verse forms into England, brought new vigor and life 
to its decaying poetry, so Surrey brought in the Italian 
artistic conscience, the love of pohsh and style and 
the aim toward perfection. Wyatt had striven in the 
right direction, but had misunderstood the nature 
of the Itahan sonnet. Surrey likewise ignored the 
Italian structure, and made use of a model which was 
to be followed by Watson and Shakespeare. Sur- 
rey's innovations were generally in the direction of 
new forms. In one poem he employed the teiza 
rima, a form which never took kindly root on English 
soil. In translating the ^neid, he also first made 
use in English of a decasyllabic blank verse, the versi 
sciolti, which Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici and Molza 
had employed in similar renderings only a few 
years before. Of his other innovations in syntax and 
metre little need here be said ; he and Wyatt stand 
together as the exponents and advocates of the Pe- 
trarchan influence in the new English school of poetry 
they had founded. 

The Petrarchan movement was slow at the start to 



330 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

take root in England; neither its language nor its 
ideas proved congenial at first. Its very conceits 
were misinterpreted in the beginning by the slow- 
witted English, who took its stock of lovers' pangs and 
sufferings quite literally. Gascoigne complained bit- 
terly of this lack of appreciation and of readers who 
construed " the contentions passed in verse long since 
between Mr. Churchyard and Camel to have been, in 
truth, a quarrel between two neighbors ... of whom 
one having a camel in keeping, and that other having 
charge of the churchyard, it was supposed they had 
grown to debate because the camel came into the 
churchyard. Laugh not at this, lusty yunkers, since 
the pleasant ditty of the noble Earl of Surrey begin- 
ning thus, In Winter's just return, was also construed 
to be made indeed by a shepherd. ... Of a truth my 
good gallants, there are such as having only learned to 
read English, interpret Latin, Greek, French, and 
Italian phrases or metaphors, even according to their 
own motherly conception and childish skill." ^ When, 
however, numerous Englishmen returning from Italian 
travels brought back with them a knowledge of the 
Tuscan revival which had swept over Italy, and reports 
of Bembo and his school holding their country's poets 
in no less esteem than the ancients, the vogue for the 
Petrarchan sonnet set in also in England. 

Following an example often practised in Italy, Tot- 
teVs Miscellany, the first English collection of verse, was 
brought out in 1557. While many of the new forms 
1 Gascoigne's Posies^ I575> preface. 



ITALIAN INFLUENCE IN ENGLISH POETRY 331 

of poetry were here published for the first time in Eng- 
land, several of the poets who contributed to it were 
practically unaffected by the Italian lyric. Nicholas 
Grimald, for instance, in spite of his Italian origin, 
belonged rather to the classical school. An occasional 
use of conceits can be discovered in the verse of 
Barnabe Googe,^ but he had no real conception of the 
rigid form and structure of the Petrarchan sonnet, 
although nearly all his lyrics, regardless of length, were 
called " sonnets" in accordance with the loose mediae- 
val use of the word. Turbervile, likewise, although 
possessing a good knowledge of Itahan,^ made no real 
use of the sonnet ; and George Gascoigne, whom an 
Italian friend called "an imitator of Petrarch,"^ in 
spite of a few sonnets of the conventional type, pre- 
ferred the less rigid structure of the canzone^ and 
copied the Tuscan lyric in spirit rather than in form. 
Petrarch, however, was to become more and more the 
recognized leader of the school, the "head and prince 
of poets all." ^ No one, it was thought, could com- 
pare to him as a poet, nor had any one attained so 
lofty a style.'' Several of the sonnets in the Miscellany 
were modelled on those of Petrarch, although they 
had already been translated by Wyatt.^ The original 

^ Poems, p. 94 et seq. 

2 Vide Anglia, XIII, article by Koeppel. 

3 Gascoigne's Posies, 1575, commendatory letter in the preface. 
* TotteVs Miscellany,^. 178. 

^ Ibid., p. 1 78, second sonnet. 

^ Ibid., p. 260; cf. Petrarch, Sonnet 156, and Wyatt, Son- 
net 14. 



332 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

type was by this time firmly established in the courtier's 
mind, and many people of note were writing imitations 
of the Petrarchan sonnet. For a time, however, the 
use of the sonnet form remained stationary in England. 
At first it had been known only at the court. A cer- 
tain time was to elapse before it was generally adopted. 
Thomas Watson, in his Passionate Century of Love, 
began afresh the later revival of the sonnet. His ad- 
mirers had discovered that he could write verse in the 
Petrarchan manner. 

The stars which did at Petrarch's birthday reign 

Were fixed again at thy nativity, 

Destining thee the Tuscan's poesy, 

Who scaled the skies in lofty quatorzain.^ 

In his effort to improve the form, he added to it a 
four-lined stanza ; at the same time he regarded him- 
self as a successor to Petrarch, by translating whose 
sonnets into Latin ^ he had begun his poetical career. 

Watson became the most popular poet of his time, 
and probably to him more than any one else was due 
the fashion of the sonnet in England. It is difficult 
to-day to explain the great vogue his verse enjoyed 
by any other reason than its reintroducing the 
Petrarchan fashion. His so-called "passions" had not 
even the pretence of true emotion or feeling in them, 
and were, in fact, little else than verses pieced to- 
gether from the poetry of foreign Petrarchists. The 
sources in every case were openly acknowledged, as 

^ Commendatory Sonnet to Watson, by G. Burke. 
2 Watson, Passion, VI. 



ITALIAN INFLUENCE IN ENGLISH POETRY 333 

they tended to show the author's erudition. Petrarch, 
Serafino, Strozza, Firenzuola, and others, were ahke 
brought under contribution to illustrate his wit. He 
imitated especially the conceits which formed so largely 
the stock of the Petrarchan school. The inward feel- 
ing of love which was the main theme of this kind of 
poetry offered but little variety of expression. The 
successors of Petrarch, therefore, in order to escape 
monotony, made use of extravagant metaphors and 
exaggeration. Watson took from the Italians chiefly 
their conceits and affectations — such, for instance, as 
Cupid shooting an arrow from his mistress's fair eyes, 
and so wounding the poet with love and desire that he 
was beyond all remedy.^ Occasionally the affectation 
took an outward metrical form as well, and verse was 
written in the eccentric shape of "A Pasquin Pillar." 
Nowhere was any real attempt made at originality or 
freshness of expression, while at all times a display of 
erudition was aimed at : in a single poem " he cited 
no less than twelve sources. The form and spirit were 
alike handed down to him by the tradition of the 
Petrarchan school. His only task was to remodel in 
English the mosaic of Itahan phrases. 

The Elizabethan sonnets seem at first glance to 
yield a rich harvest of intimate thoughts and emo- 
tions, to take the reader into the poet's confidence 
and lay bare his soul for him.^ It is only after 
comparing together, the English with the French, 

1 Passion, XXIV, from Serafino. 2 Passioji, LXXXIX. 

^ Cf. Lee, Shakespeare, p. 427. 



334 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

Spanish and Italian, and tracing them back to their 
source in Petrarch and his imitators, that a common 
stock of expressions and conceits appears throughout. 
No matter how much the individual genius of the poet 
may have added new beauties of his own, underneath 
it all certain forms and modes of thought remain 
unaltered. The high artistic seriousness of the Ital- 
ians may perhaps have been lessened when the sonnet 
was transplanted to English soil. A greater sensuality, 
and possibly a nearer approach to nature, made itself 
felt, but the groundwork of the whole remained 
identical. The same relations still existed between 
the lady and her lover. In the poetic jargon of the 
time, she was cold, cruel, insensible to him, while he 
was timid and unworthy of her. Petrarch had estab- 
lished a series of states necessary for every lover to 
pass through ; his Laura became a pattern for all poets.^ 
To show the true spirit of devotion there were defi- 
nite sufferings they had to endure : alternately to 
burn and freeze, to sorrow when removed from the 
beloved one's presence, to live only in her sight, 
and feel that all inspiration proceeded from her alone. 
Convention demanded certain things ; the Petrarchan 
lady was to be as beautiful and virtuous as she was 
cold and indifferent to her lover. The type never 
varied; she possessed no individuaUty, no life nor 
movement ; she was, in fact, a stationary sun, radiat- 
ing all happiness yet insensible of her own attraction. 
A common poetic language was employed by the 

1 Cf. Daniel, Delia, Sonnet XLIII. 



ITALIAN INFLUENCE IN ENGLISH POETRY 335 

Petrarchists of the sixteenth century. There was a 
similarity, not only in spirit, but in expression as well. 
The same literary artifices can be traced throughout 
in the frequent use of antitheses, puns, conceits and 
even occasional grotesqueness. Tricks of enumera- 
tion, a constant display of erudition, a use of meta- 
physical ideas and abstractions, were all characteristic 
of this school. There had been a constant use, or 
rather abuse, in Petrarch, of eyes and hair, of tears and 
sorrow, of fire and cold. All this was greatly exag- 
gerated by his successors ; the happiness of nature 
was contrasted with the misery of the lover, and the 
same tricks of style were repeated again and again.^ 

The great faults in Petrarch had been excess of 
refinement, with its necessary removal from real life, 
and exaggeration of feeling. His followers, especially 
in Italy, developed his affectation in ideas and expres- 
sion. To escape direct imitation or translation, 
foreign Petrarchists would fall into errors of taste and 
abuse of metaphor, which led to the over-employment 
of mythology to illustrate what they had in mind. 
Their poetic efforts were directed, therefore, toward 
form rather than to originality of expression. The Pe- 
trarchan tricks of style were easily mastered ; its ex- 
pressions, ideas and feelings were alike at the disposal 
of the poet-mechanic, while the form of allegory pre- 
sented an easy method of expressing imaginary 
passion ; the use of superlatives and a redundant 
phraseology could swell out any conceit to the re- 

1 Vide Fieri, op. cit., pp. 88, 137. 



336 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

quired fourteen lines. A poet had only to select 
some lady and celebrate her charms ; in this fashion 
Sidney chose his Stella, Lodge his Phillis, Giles 
Fletcher his Licia, Constable his Diana. To imitate I 
Petrarch became the greatest ambition of every poet. 
Churchyard spoke of " One Barnes that Petrarch's 
scholar is " ; and Gabriel Harvey had already called 
Spenser " An English Petrarch," as the highest 
praise he could give, further justifying his imita- 
tion of him, since "all the noblest Italian, French 
and Spanish poets have in their several veins Pe- 
trarchized; and it is no dishonor for the dainti- 
est or divinest Muse to be his scholar, whom the 
amiablest invention and beautifullest elocution ac- 
knowledged their master." ^ It was in vain that 
Sidney protested against this imitation ; that he de- 
rided those who searched " every purling spring which 
from the ribs of old Parnasus flows," brought " dic- 
tionary's method " into their rhymes, and 

Poor Petrarch's long deceased woes 
With new-born sighs and denisened wit do sing.2 

In spite, too, of his asserting that he was no "pick- 
purse of another's wit," ^ he himself conformed to all 
the rules of the Petrarchan poetry. The spirit of 
his conceits was often very similar, and there was 
more than one resemblance between his sonnets and 

1 G. Harvey, Pierce's Supererogation. Works, II, 93. 

2 Sidney, Astrophel and Stella, Sonnet XV. 

3 Ibid., LXXIV. 



ITALIAN INFLUENCE IN ENGLISH POETRY 337 

those of the ItaUan Petrarchists.^ Stella represented 
the conventional type of lady, " cold and cruel," who 
found pleasure in her lover's pain; he too felt heart 
burnings " and the power of love ; for his heartstrings 
had been stretched on Cupid's bow.^ Many of his 
tricks of style were likewise thoroughly Petrarchan. 
In spite of calling those who flaunted their thoughts in 
fine phrases " Pindar's Apes," '' he also made frequent 
use of conceits, employing at different times the vari- 
ous tricks of style of this school : enumeration, repe- 
tition, punning, antithesis and elaborate metaphors 
sustained to the end of the sonnet. His interspersing 
of songs with sonnets, moreover, was in strict accord- 
ance with the Petrarchan model. Sidney's poetry, 
however, in spite of the elements of imitation, differed 
from Petrarch's ; there was in it more life and vigor, 
and also less art. He was far younger and fresher, 
more natural and less restrained; more sensual, too, 
as were indeed all the English Petrarchists, who, not 
satisfied with the distant adoration of their ladies, 
longed for their kisses as well.^ 

The numerous Elizabethan collections of sonnets 
betray alike in one form or another their Italian 
sources and ideas. The Visions of Petrarch , published 
in 1569 in Van der Noodt's Theatre, have now been 
assigned to Spenser.® This collection, which showed 

1 Romanische Forschungen, V, 90. Article by E. Koeppel. 

2 Sidney, Sonnet LXXVI. ^ jbid,, XIX. 

* Ibid.y III. 5 jiij^^ LXXIX, LXXXI-II. 

• Englische Studien, 1S91. Article by E. Koeppel. 



338 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 



1 



traces of Ariosto, Sannazaro and Tasso as well as 
Petrarch, he called by the Italian name of Amoretti, \ 
Conceits which had been adapted or imitated can 
be found even in Shakespeare's sonnets, for he assimi- 
lated the thoughts and words of the Elizabethan Pe- 
trarchists with as little compunction as the plays and 
novels of his contemporaries -} his views of ideal beauty 
as independent of time, of the power of love as superior 
to its accidents, his very boasting that he would confer 
immortality on the person he addressed, were merely 
repetitions of what had become the commonplaces of 
European poetry.^ 
^H*^ The expressions of the English Petrarchists were 
all variations of a single principle. The differences 
between them were only of degree, some more than 
others attaining the ingenuity and polish sought for. 
All alike reveal a common fund of ideas and condi- 
tions, out of which their poetry developed. Some- 
times indeed the Italianization proceeded a little 
farther than at others ; thus Itahan mottoes begin 
and end the Zepheria, which also contained verses ad- 
dressed Alii veri figliuoli delle Muse; in certain of the 
" Canzons " ^ in this collection there was even a curi- 
ous combination of the pastoral of Sannazaro and the 
Petrarchan sonnet ; the EngHsh imitators of Petrarch, 
however, often differed from their master in trying to 
wind up their sonnets with a couplet in epigram. 

^ S. Lee, Shakespeare, p. 109 et seq. 

2 /^^v., p. 114. Vide also G. Wyndham, Puems of Skakspeare, 
p. cxiii et seq. 3 Canzon 1 1. 



ITALIAN INFLUENCE IN ENGLISH POETRY. 339 

Henry Constable was, perhaps, after Watson, the 
most conspicuous of the Petrarchistic poets. His 
sonnets are full of concetti and exaggerated expres- 
sions of all kinds. His mistress's eye, he declared, was 
the glass through which he saw his heart, his own eye 
the window through which she might see his ; ^ his 
only idea in writing was to sacrifice his sighs to verse.^ 
The entire expression of his thought was of the con- 
ventional type ; he was the lover languishing, she the 
cruel mistress. The other sonnetteers of the age, 
Barnfield, Daniel, Griffin, Drayton, Lodge and the 
rest, betray the same tendencies.^ Giles Fletcher 
openly acknowledged his sonnets to be imitations. 
Robert Tofte wrote most of the stanzas of his Laura 
in Italy.* Nearly all the English poets had then 
travelled abroad, and Dallington even gave advice to 
such of his travellers in Italy as were anxious to follow 
the muse.^ 

A reaction, however, set in against the domination 
of Petrarch. The very poets who felt most his influ- 
ence were to revolt against it. Giles Fletcher, in the 
preface to Licia, protested against " those who think 
so basely of our bare English that they deem themselves 
barbarous . . . unless they have borrowed from Italy, 

1 Sonnet 5. 2 jf^id,, i. 

8 Cf. Lodge, Sonnet 11, with Petrarch, 156, and Wyatt, 14. 
Lodge was indebted as well to Dolce, Martelli, and Lodovico 
Pascale, etc. (^Edinburgh Review, January, 1896, p. 51). 

4 Laura, the Toys of a Traveler, dedicated " Alia Bellissima 
Sua Signora," and signed " Affetionatissimo servitore della 
divina bellezza sua, R. T." ^ Method for Travel. 



340 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

Spain, and France, their best and choicest conceits." 
Shakespeare Hkewise made fun of what he once had 
practised himself,^ and even Sir John Davies parodied 
the craze in a series of " guUing sonnets." 

^-^ "I 

A feeling of native excellence was springing up in 
England. Francis Meres echoed it, when he com- 
pared his own countrymen, poets and artists to the 
Greeks, the Romans and the Itahans. Wilham Clarke 
wrote in similar vein : *' Let other countries sweet 
Cambridge envy yet admire . . . thy Petrarch, sweet 
Spenser." He urged Enghshmen to write as if " Italian 
Ariosto did but shadow the meanest part of thy muse, 
that Tassa's Godfrey is not worthy to make compare 
with your truly eternizing Eliza's style." ^ Samuel 
Daniel, hkewise, who had been in Italy and had met 
Guarini,^ looked forward to seeing " Great Sidney 
and our Spenser" ranked as the equals of the Italian 
poets — 

That the melody of our sweet isle, 
Might now be heard to Tyber, Arne, and Po; 
That they might know how far Thames doth outgo 
The music of declined Italy.* 

1 Two Gentlemen of Verona, III, ii, 68; Henry Fifth, III, 
VII, 33 et seq. Vide also Lee, op. cit., p. 107 et seq. 

2 Polinianteia, 1595. 

3 Commendatory sonnet to Dymock's translation of the Pastor 
Fido. 

^ Epistle to the Countess of Pembroke, in the preface to his 
Ckopatra. 



ITALIAN INFLUENCE IN ENGLISH POETRY 34 1 

Spenser himself was fully aware of the magnitude of 
the task he had set out to accomplish, and considered 
himself in the direct Hne of epic inheritance from 
Homer and Virgil, Ariosto and Tasso. Not only did 
he model his own verse form on the ottava rif?ia of 
the Italians, but in the entire structure of the Faerie 
Queene he kept the example of the Italian romantic 
epic constantly in mind. In a letter to Harvey, he 
wrote that he looked forward to " overgoing Ariosto." 
To Spenser, however, the aims of the Italian poets 
seemed lofty and moral. He read the Orlando from 
his own ideal point of view ; ^ the bare facts of Ariosto 
he made use of just as he took his satire, quite seri- 
ously, entirely ignoring the irony ; his imitation, how- 
ever, was in many cases deliberate, and there are 
numerous passages both in the Orlando and in Tasso's 
Gerusalemme Liberata which he either adapted or 
translated from the Italian.^ Frequently, too, he took 
only the external facts from Ariosto, but remodelled 
them in such a way as to remove all humorous sug- 
gestions ; thus, for instance, the scene where Zerbino 
jousts with Marfisa over the old hag Gabrina was re- 

1 Vide Spenser's Itnitations from Ariosto, Proceedings Mod- 
ern Language Association, 1897, P- 7° ^^ ^^^- ^^^^ Warton, 
Obserz'at707ts 077. the Faerie Queene, I, 272 etseq.; J. Schrombs, Ari- 
osto und Englische Literatiir. 

^ Wide Aj/g/ia, XI. Article by E. Koeppel. Cf. : 
Faerie Queene, I, II, 30-31, Gerusalemme Liberata, XIII, 41-42. 
Ill, 31, « « III, 4- 

VII, 31, « " IX, 25. 

" XI, 44, " " VI, 8.. 

XII, 21, " " XV, 60, etc. 



342 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

produced by Spenser in all seriousness.^ Again, he 
occasionally reversed the situation as when he made 
a triumph of chastity out of an amorous scene/ treat- 
ing with perfect decorum the most daring passages in 
Ariosto. 

The importance of the Italian influence on Spenser 
has often been exaggerated, especially by continen- 
tal critics, who, looking at the surface rather than 
the spirit, have seen reflected in the poem the art 
and beauty of the Italian Renaissance. Even where 
Spenser made use of characters and situations sug- 
gested by Ariosto, and of descriptions by Tasso, the 
Faerie Queene was yet written in a spirit far different I 
from that which inspired the ItaHan romantic epic. 
Its austerity inclined rather to the Platonism of Pe- 
trarch than the easy self-indulgence of Ariosto, or the 
high-colored seriousness of Tasso. The Italian literary 
influence can be traced in Spenser in outward form 
rather than in inward spirit. It was well for Watson 
or Constable, devoid of originality, to borrow feelings 
and thoughts where they themselves possessed none. 
Minor poets who wrote sonnets because others did 
Hkewise could steal outright from their Italian sources. 
The greater ones, however, like Shakespeare, would seek 
in Italy only those elements which England did not 
offer; the outer shell, the framework and structure, 

1 Orlando Furioso, XX, 113 ^/ seq. ; cf. Faerie Queene, IV, 
IV, 9. 

2 Orlando Furioso, VII, 21 et seq. ; cf. Faerie Queene, II, ni, 
21 et seq. 



ITALIAN INFLUENCE IN ENGLISH POETRY 343 

could be obtained there better than at home. A 
learned poet like Spenser would find there as well a 
more serious conception of the dignity of poetry, an 
artistic conscience, and a love of beauty for its own 
sake, which he could well emulate. But beyond it all 
went something deeper, and any appreciation of the 
Faerie Queene, other than as a gallery of splendid 
pictures and a stringing together of beautiful Hnes, 
must find behind it the genius of Spenser, almost 
untouched in spirit by foreign influence. As an 
artist he obeyed willingly the canons of the roman- 
tic epic ; he made use in introductory stanzas of cer- 
tain of Ariosto's mechanical details. His imitation 
extended even to the characters of the plot ; Arthur, 
hke Orlando, was merely the ostensible hero ; Brag- 
gadocchio was suggested by Rodomonte and Man- 
dricardo, Archimago by Atlante; Arthegall and Brito- 
mart, likewise, were based to a certain extent on 
Ruggiero and Bradamante ; their various actions had 
all their counterparts in the Orlando} The structure 
of the poem showed that at every stage of the compo- 
sition he was influenced by the manner and methods 
of Ariosto, just as Tasso appealed to him in descrip- 
tions.2 Spenser felt, however, no deep interest either 
in the story or in his characters ; the Faerie Queene 
was both reflective and picturesque, differing altogether 
from its model. The resemblances between the two 
poems were thus on the surface, the differences in 

1 Proc. Mod. Lang. Assoc, 1897, p. 128. 

2 Courthope, English Poetry, II, 259. 



344 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

the spirit. The one poet was the Puritan Platonist 
of the Enghsh Renaissance inheriting the traditions 
of mediaeval allegory; the other was the child of 
sixteenth century Italy, the contemporary of Machi- 
avelli and Aretino. The one was anxious to present 
the perfect gentleman " in virtuous and gentle disci- 
phne," concerned alone with his moral qualities ; the 
other wished merely to amuse, serious only in his 
artistic conscience. Art was thus the common bond 
uniting them ; it drew Spenser toward Italy, and 
made his greatness as a poet shine in the austerity 
and purity of his spirit, presented with the beauty of 
his art. 

Art was the great lesson Italy had to teach England. 
Energy, freshness, imagination, purity and sweetness 
belonged alike to the Enghsh of the sixteenth century. 
They were deficient, however, in form and measure, 
and the artistic qualities of style. It was precisely in 
these qualities that the Italians were supreme. In Italy 
the development of two centuries had brought with it 
^ a technical perfection in art ; hardly would one literary 
form be exhausted before another would spring up. 
When the lyric had nothing further to offer, the ro- 
mantic epic and pastoral took its place, each in turn 
finding its perfect expression. The constant pres- 
ence, moreover, of classical models strengthened the 
artistic conscience of Italian poetry, while the lack of 
all other restraints in life served to concentrate on art 
the same qualities which in northern Europe found 
their outlet in moral conduct. It was only in Plato- 



ITALIAN INFLUENCE IN ENGLISH POETRY 345 

nism that the spirit of Spenser can be said to have 
been affected by Italy. The intellectual atmosphere of 
Cambridge was then Platonic, which meant not only 
the influence of the master, but even more of the 
fifteenth-century neo-Platonists whose aims had been 
directed toward reconciling the doctrines of Plato with 
Christianity. Spenser himself was perfectly familiar 
with Italian Platonism, and repeated its current thoughts 
in his hymns on heavenly love and beauty. 

The Platonic writings of Ficino and Pico della 
Mirandola had been known in England since the time 
of Colet. Later, Sir John Cheke, who had lived at 
Padua, and Roger Ascham both taught Platonism at 
Cambridge. Other Italian books on philosophical sub- 
jects were translated into English.^ The influence of 
Italian philosophy was hkewise felt when Giordano 
Bruno, whose doctrines of love were neo-Platonic, came 
to England, where he lived for two years, lecturing at 
Oxford on the immortality of the soul and holding there 
a public disputation. Bruno, while disgusted by the 
ignorance and conceit of the doctors of the university 
with whom he disputed,^ was more than pleased at his 
reception by the cultivated circle of which Sidney and 
Fulke Greville were the chief luminaries. In their pres- 



1 Circes ofjohii Baptiste Gello, Florentine, translated out of 
Italian into English by Henry Iden, 1557. The Fearful Fan- 
cies of the Florentine Cooper written in Tuscan by John Baptiste 
Gelli, one of the free study of Florence, translated into English 
by W. Barker, Pensoso d'' Altrui, London, 1^68. 

2 La Cena dei Ceneriy ed. Wagner, p. 1 79. 






346 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

ence he expounded the new Copernican philosophy, 
while he dedicated two of his books to Sidney.^ 

Italy, where the influence of rediscovered classic 
form arrested, for a century, the course of native litera- 
ture, led the way in reviving the writing of Latin verse. 
Petrarch, whose Latin Africa gave an example, found 
worthy successors in Vida, Fracastoro and Sannazaro. 
Several of the Italian classical poets, it will be remem- 
bered, came to England. Peter Carmeliano of Brescia 
wrote a poetical epistle on the birth of Prince Arthur ; 
Johannes Opicius, who was probably an Italian, com- 
posed royal panegyrics in the classical style and Gio- 
vanni Gigli, Bishop of Worcester, wrote a Latin epi- 
thalamium on an English subject. Later, Ammonio 
and Adrian de Castello were both to be celebrated for 
their classical verse. Marcellus Palingenius, however, 
was the Itahan whose works proved most popular 
beyond the Alps. His Zodiac of Life ^ translated by 
Barnabe Googe, went through half a dozen English 
editions. Its supposed Protestantism and violent 
denunciation of the loose living of the clergy made it 

1 G. Bruno's most important Italian works were also printed 
in London : Spaccio De La Bestia Trionfante . . . Parigi 
(London), 1584; Giordano Bruno Nolano, Del gV Heroici 
Ftirori Al moltolllustre et eccellente Cavalliero, Signer Phillippo 
Sidneo, Parigi (London?), 1585. 

2 The First Six Books of Marcellus Palingenius, translated 
by Barnabe Googe, 1561. 



ITALIAN INFLUENCE IN ENGLISH POETRY 347 

rank almost as a classic in England and other Protes- 
tant countries.^ 

Sir Thomas More, George Buchanan and Alexander 
Barclay were conspicuous among those who distin- 
guished themselves by their Latin poetry, More by 
his epigrams, and Buchanan by his classical tragedies, 
though he excelled no less in other forms of verse. 
The fashion for writing Latin verse, however, was in no 
sense an original movement, but merely continued what 
had long since begun in Italy. It seemed in many cases 
as if antiquity interpreted by Italians was more congenial 
to the English than the ancient works themselves. 
This perhaps accounted for the extraordinary vogue 
enjoyed by the eclogues of Baptista Mantuanus,^ which 
in Shakespeare's boyhood were even read in the 
grammar schools.^ Alexander Barclay, in his own 
eclogues,^ imitated openly both Mantuanus and ^neas 
Sylvius, calHng the former " the best of that sort, since 
poets first began." 

The literary forms of antiquity, after remaining sterile 
for many centuries, came into use once more with the 
Renaissance. The influence of classical models was 
to breathe new life into poetry. The pastoral was 
only one of the many forms which, first imitated 
in Italy, were later to flourish in other European 

1 Warton, English Poetry, IV, 282. 

2 The Eclogues of the Poet B. Mantuan, translated by George 
Turbervile, 1567. 

* Lee, op. cii., p. 1 3. Vide also Love's Labour's Lost, IV, 2, lOO. 

* Alexander Barclay, prologue to the Eclogues, 1570. 



348 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

countries. Barnabe Googe, for instance, showed the 
influence of Sannazaro through the medium of the 
Spaniard Garcilaso de la Vega.^ At other times France 
was to be the intermediary between Italy and Eng- 
land. With Spenser, however, the influence was direct 
and the October in his Shepheard^s Calendar was openly 
imitated from Mantuanus.^ From E. K.'s introduc- 
tory epistle it is apparent that Mantuanus, Petrarch, 
Boccaccio and Sannazaro were regarded in the direct 
line of tradition from Theocritus and Vergil. Spenser, 
whom Drayton called the " great reformer," ^ was in fact 
introducing in England the pastoral which had first 
been revived in Italy. 

The subsequent development of the English pasto- 
ral was largely influenced by the Aminta of Tasso 
and Guarini's Pastor Fido, The first was trans- 
lated into Latin hexameters by Thomas Watson in 
1587. An unauthorized English rendering was made 
from this by Abraham Fraunce, which proved far more 
popular than the Latin version of Watson. The Pastor 
Fido was not translated till some years later ;^ it was 
first printed in London, in the original Italian, as was 
also the Aminta. The influence of Tasso and Guarini 
can further be traced, not only in the pastorals proper 
of Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher, but in the drama 

1 Underbill, op. cit., p. 242. 

2 For Mantuanus' influence on Spenser, vide Anglia III, 266, 
and IX, 205, articles by F. Kluge. 

* The Baro^is' IVars, preface. 

* The Pastor Fido, translated by Sir Edward Dymock, 1602. 



ITALIAN INFLUENCE IN ENGLISH POETRY 349 

as well ; in Lyly's, Greene's and Peele's pastoral plays, 
as also much later, in the Faithful Shepherdess and the 
Sad Shepherd. 

Several of Sidney's songs in the Arcadia were in- 
tended to be sung to the time of Neapolitan " Villa- 
nells." Sir Thomas Wyatt's most successful ventures 
had been his songs, often imitated from the Italian. 
The musical accompaniment to which such songs were 
sung came in many instances from across the Alps. 
Madrigals also which were especially popular in England 
had most of them originated in Italy.^ The first col- 
lection of Italian madrigals printed in England was 
by Nicholas Yonge.^ It was followed by Thomas Wat- 
son's collection after Marenzio, Nannio and Converso.^ 
Morley and Dowland continued the work,^ while Yonge 
later brought out a second series.^ John Dowland, who 
when in Italy had made friends with Giovanni Croce, 
Luca Marenzio and the other great composers, was the 

1 Vide T. Oliphant, Madrigals, 1836. 

2 Musica Transalpina . . . 7vi^k the first and second part of 
* La Verginella ' made by Master Byrd upon the tiuo stanzas of 
AriostOf and brought to speak English with the rest, N. Yonge, 
1588. 

^ The First Set of Italian Madrigals Englished ... by 
T. Watson, 1590. 

* Alto di Thomaso Morlei. II prima libro della Ballatte a 
cinque voci, in Londra appresso Tomaso Este, 1595 (dedicated 
to Sir Robert Cecil; both the dedication and the letterpress 
were in Italian). The First Book of Songs or Airs, by John 
Dowland, 1596. 

^ N. Yonge, Musica Transalpina, translated out of sundry 
Italian authors, 1597. 



350 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

most celebrated, perhaps, of the English musicians of 
the day. These English musicians formed the last link 
in the chain of those who brought back new lessons from, 
across the Alps. They also found a new art to learn in 
Italy, where some of them became thoroughly Italian- 
ated. John Cooper, for instance, called himself Gio- 
vanni Coperario after having been in Italy. He 
was among the first to bring back a knowledge of the 
new homophonic school which had arisen there, and 
which was later to be developed in England by his two 
pupils, William and Henry Lawes. At a time when 
the musical drama originated. Cooper forms, with La- 
niere and Ferrabosco, the binding tie between Italy and 
England. Ferrabosco himself was the son of an Ital- 
ian musician, and had studied music at Bologna, where 
he attached himself to the new school then growing 
up. 

In examining the different English books of madri- 
gals of this time, one cannot but be impressed by their 
almost exclusively Italian origin. Nicholas Yonge 
wrote that he had " carefully culled out of the com- 
positions of the best authors in Italy," alluding to the 
musical books yearly sent him thence. Morley, Dow- 
land, Byrd and Watson alike frankly acknowledged 
the sources of their collections, and mentioned the 
Italian composers whose songs they reproduced. In 
Italy, during this time, music, the last product of the 
Renaissance, was at its height, and Dowland spoke of 
its flourishing in all the cities he visited. In England, 
too, Italian musicians such as the Bassani, the Lupos 



ITALIAN INFLUENCE IN ENGLISH POETRY 35 1 

and the elder Ferrabosco were to be found at court, 
while they were also in the service of great noble- 
men.^ In music, as in the sciences and arts, Italy led 
the way for the rest of Europe to follow. 



The Italian influence on Enghsh satire began al- 
ready with Sir Thomas Wyatt, who imitated Alamanni 
both in the form of epistolary satire and in his use of 
the terza rima? Wyatt was the first English poet to 
imitate the original model of classic satire revived in 
Italy, and adapt the ancient style to the conditions 
of his own time and place. English satire, however, 
in the sixteenth century was to follow a course simi- 
lar to that taken by lyric poetry, especially the sonnet. 
The classical model introduced by Wyatt was not to 
flourish in England until toward the end of the 
century, when Hall and Marston took it up. In the 
meantime, satires continued to be written in accord- 
ance with earUer models ; Edward Hake, for instance, 
belonged almost to the mediaeval satirists and followed 
no classical examples, while Gascoigne's Steel Glass 
betrayed few evidences of the new style. 

The influence of Italy on English satire was two- 
fold. On the one hand was felt the revival of the 
classical traditions in Alamanni and Ariosto; on the 
other, was the prose satire, of which Aretino's writings 
offered the great example. Aretino himself was one 

1 Cot. Mss. Brit. Mus., Titus B. VI/, 155. 

2 CX Wyatt, Satire II with Alamanni, Satire XII. 



352 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

of the Italians whose name was in every EngHshman's 
mouth, where it became a byword for sensuaUty. He 
had even dedicated a volume of letters to Henry the 
Eighth/ who finally granted him a pension after years 
of delay.i William Thomas in turn dedicated his 
Pilgrim to Aretino whom he called a "right natural 
poet . . . whose virtue consisteth in nature without any 
art." 2 His influence was chiefly noticeable, however, 
in the closing years of the sixteenth century, with the 
Bohemian group of pamphleteers, which included 
Robert Greene, and especially Thomas Nash, known 
as the " EngHsh Aretine." The latter described his 
master as '' one of the wittiest knaves that ever God 
made," one whose pen was sharp like a poniard, and 
who wrote never a line that failed to make a man 
drunk with admiration.^ Nash relied, like Aretino, on 
a free use of the vernacular to obtain his humor- 
ous eflects, and would coin words from the Itahan 
where the English was not to his taste. He copied 
him especially in his too frequent abuse and vitupera- 
tion. Gabriel Harvey censured him for this licentious- 
ness,* though trying himself to imitate the wit of him 
whom he called Unico Aretino. 

The classical satire, first revived in Italy with Vinci- 
guerra, did not really begin to flourish in England until 
the last decade of the sixteenth century. Like so many 

1 Vide Letters, II passim, IV, 53. 

2 The Pilgrim, dedication. 

^ Jack Wilton, p. 107 et seq. 

* New Letter of Notable Contents, Works, I, 272 et seq., 289. 



ITALIAN INFLUENCE IN ENGLISH POETRY 353 

other foreign literary forms, it failed to attain its popu- 
larity at first. The sonnet, the pastoral and the Sene- 
can tragedy were all to enjoy their fashion before its 
turn came ; between Wyatt and Donne there extended 
an interval of half a century. Satire in Tudor England 
never became, in fact, thoroughly acclimated. The 
Elizabethan satirists followed, as a rule, the Latin tra- 
ditions belonging rather to the school of Juvenal and 
Persius, even though the Horatian influence was very 
perceptible in Hall. The Enghsh satires, however, 
contained numerous Italian words and expressions. 
Guilpin, Marston, Lodge and the rest referred fre- 
quently to the " filthy Aretine," and alluded to the 
vices and crimes of Italy. Hall even prefaced his 
satire with an Italian motto ^, and on more than one 
occasion borrowed from Ariosto.^ 

Beginning with Wyatt and Surrey, the English often 
found models for their religious verse in Italian poetry ; 
Wyatt's penitential psalms, for instance, were, like his 
satires, adapted from Alamanni. The fashion for this 
kind of poetry came also very much later, George 
Chapman, for instance, translated Petrarch's hymns. 
On the other hand, Laurence Bodley, an Oxford fel- 
low, translated into Italian a number of the psalms.^ 
This religious influence in poetry became far more 
important, however, in the days of the Stuarts when 
Crashaw echoed Marini. 

1 Book IV, i. 

2 Alden, Rise of Satire in England, p. 113. Vide also Hall, 
Satires, I, iv. 3 Ms. Bodleian Library. 

2A 



354 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

The Italian influence was, likewise, responsible in 
part for the narrative poems of the later Elizabethan 
Age. Hero and Leander, Venus and Adonis, Pygmalion 
and the Hermaphrodite were all conceived in the florid 
and sensuous Italian manner. At times this meant 
merely that the Elizabethans read the classical stories 
on which these tales were founded in the Italian, 
which was far more widely known than the ancient 
tongues. In Italian there existed usually both literal 
and poetic translations. Bernardo Tasso, for instance, | 
paraphrased freely the Hero and Leander of Musseus, 
after Baldi had translated it Hterally. Tasso's render- 
ing was certainly made use of by the Spaniard, Boscan,^ 
and was perhaps not unknown to Marlowe himself, 
whose word painting was thoroughly Italian. Musaeus, 
for instance, described in two lines Leander's first 
swimming of the Hellespont; Tasso and Boscan both 
required over twenty to do so, while Marlowe elabo- 
rated it to even greater length. Certain of the Hnes 
not in the original Greek bear likewise a decided 
resemblance to each other. 

Le figlie di Nereo per /' onde sake 
Scherzando coi Tritoni^ 

of Tasso, is not unlike the 

Sweet singing mermaids sported with their loves. 

Hero and Leander, II, 162. 

True classical scholarship was a rare acquisition 
among the earlier Elizabethans, while the Italian 

1 Vide Flamini, Studi di Storia italiana e straniera, Livorno. 
1895. 



ITALIAN INFLUENCE IN ENGLISH POETRY 355 

offered a means of approach easy to all. The literary 
influence of Italy had further means of filtering into 
England through the hundreds of translations from the 
Italian.^ Plagiarism was not considered a vice in the 
sixteenth century, and, commencing with Wyatt, there 
began a long Hst of debts acknowledged and un- 
acknowledged to Italian literature. Works of every 
kind were translated, especially in the last quarter of 
the century. The charge once made by Sir Thomas 
Hoby that Englishmen were selfish in their studies and 
unmindful of the intellectual wants of their country- 
men, in contrast to the Italians who translated books 
in foreign languages for the benefit of their less fortu- 
nate compatriots, was no longer true ; translators were 
highly regarded, and a perfect mania for translating set 
in. There were few books of importance which did not 
speedily appear in English. Some complained of these 
renderings, urging against them all kinds of objec- 
tions. George Pettie satirized those who, through 
ignorance, were unable to see the faults in the original 
which they discerned in the translation, and thought 
nothing was good unless written in a foreign language.^ 
The translators as well were to have their apologists 
and defenders. Hoby declared that a man skilled in 
English translations was no less learned than he who 
had read the same in the original Latin and Greek.^ 

1 Vide Bibliography of Elizabethan Translations from the 
Italian, M. A. Scott, Proc. Mod. Lang. Assoc, 1895-98. 

2 Guazzo's Civil Conversations, preface. 

* " Epistle to the Reader," Courtier, p. 9. 



356 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

Another writer quoted Giordano Bruno's saying that all 
sciences owed their offspring to translations/ in order 
to persuade Daniel not to be ashamed " to open 
another man's shop " and " sell Italian wares " as 
though being " a bankrupt in philosophy " he " could 
not afford any pretty conceit without borrowing or em- 
bezzling." Lodowick Bryskett, the friend of Sidney I 
and Spenser, in the introduction to his translation of 
Giraldi Cinthio's Discourse of Civil Life^ wrote that 
he envied the ItaHans who had popularized moral 
philosophy by explaining Plato and Aristotle in their 
own language, wishing that English writers would fol- 
low their example. Bryskett urged Spenser to set 
himself to such a task, but he was already occupied 
with the Faerie Queene, 

The Italian epic poets were well known in England. 
Florio had already quoted from Ariosto.^ To Sir John 
Harington, however, a court wit and humorist, was 
left the task of translating the Orlando into English 
verse, one of the few translations which has remained 
famous to this day. Drayton, in his Barons'* Wars, 
was later to take the verse form from Ariosto on ac- 
count of its being " of all other the most complete and 
and best proportioned." A portion of Boiardo was 
then translated into Enghsh.^ Tasso also was popular 
in England from the very beginning, and Abraham 

1 The Worthy Tract of Paulusj'oviusthy Samuel D&mel, 1585. 

2 First Fruit esy ch. 25, 1578. 

^ Orlando Innamorato ; the first three books were translated 
by Robert Tofte in 1598. 



ITALIAN INFLUENCE IN ENGLISH POETRY 357 

Fraunce quoted freely from him as early as 1579.^ 
The first five cantos of the Jerusalem Delivered were 
translated by Richard Carew, who attempted to follow 
the original line for Hne. There are many passages of 
great beauty in this rendering,^ although it is by no 
means accurate. The more famous version by Edward 
Fairfax appeared a few years later.^ His poem has 
almost the ring of the original, and far surpassed 
Carew's translation, of which he made considerable 
use. 

VI 

The classical influence in English literature came 
largely from Italy. Classical metres, which Tolomei 
had long before attempted to revive in Italy, were 
tried by Sidney and Spenser, and found apologists in 
Drant and Gabriel Harvey. Roger Ascham was, how- 
ever, the first to advocate the use of quantity in Eng- 
lish poetry. From Gabriel Harvey's letters^ one 
can realize the extent of this movement, as well as the 
attempt which was made then to introduce such metres 
into Enghsh verse.^ Sidney, Spenser, Dyer and Gre- 
ville formed a society bearing the name of the Areopa- 
gus^ perhaps in imitation of the Florentine Academy 

1 Arcadian Rhetorike. Vide Koeppel, Anglia, XI, XII, XIII. 

2 Godfrey of Bulloigne, translated by R. C, 1594. 

' Godfrey of Bulloigne, translated by Edward Fairfax, 1600. 

* Three proper and wiltie fatniliar letters ; Two other very 
conwiendable letters, in Haslewood, Arte of English Poesy. 

^ Spingarn, Literary Criticistn in the Renaissance, p. 299 
et seq. 



358 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 



1 



in the time of Lorenzo, which bore the same name/ 
although probably based on the one which Baif 
had founded in Paris shortly before. The original 
model for all such learned societies was Italian, but the 
idea of academies had long been present to the Eng- 
Hsh mind. William Thomas, so far back as 1549? de- 
scribed the Academy in Florence as among the most 
interesting things he saw in all Italy. Later, Edmund 
Bolton advocated an English Academy, and Richard 
Carew deplored the lack ^ of such an institution in his 
own country. The idea of an Academy in England 
was even present in the mind of Milton.^ 

The dominant influence in Elizabethan criticism 
was Italian, and the introduction of the poetic canons 
of Aristotle into England resulted from the influence 
of Italian critics. Sir Philip Sidney introduced Italian 
criticism just as Wyatt and Surrey had introduced the 
Italian lyric. His Defense of Poesy has been called an 
" epitome of the literary criticism of the Italian Re- 
naissance," and its sources have been laid bare in the 
treatises of Minturno and Scaliger ; ^ Dolce, Trissino 
and Daniello were all placed by Sidney under contri- 
bution. Puttenham, likewise, as he was careful to 
inform the reader, had lived at the Italian courts ; 
his conception of the poet was based directly on that 

1 Cf. Pulci, Morgante Maggiore, XXV, 117. 

2 Richard Carew in a letter to Cotton (1605), cited by Ellis, 
Original Letters of Eminent Literary Men, Camden Society, 

p. 99. 

3 Prose Works, edited by St. John, 1848, II, pp. 477, 480. 
* Spingarn, op. cit., p. 268 et seq. 



ITALIAN INFLUENCE IN ENGLISH POETRY 359 

of Scaliger.^ The Italianated Harington, in his de- 
fence of the Oiiando Furioso against the attacks made 
on it, gave for the first time in EngHsh the'Aristotelian 
theory of the epic as revived in Italy.- Italian poetic 
criticism was also to have its influence in Elizabethan 
literature. The dramatic unities of time and place, 
formulated for the first time by Lodovico Castelvetro 
in 1570, were copied by Sidney in his Defense^ and 
utilized later in the classical plays of Daniel and 
Fulke Greville. The Senecan tragedy also in part 
through the Italian medium* influenced Enghsh at- 
tempts at classical tragedy; Gascoigne's translation 
of Jocasta, for instance, was made, not from the 
original Greek of Euripides, but from Dolce's Italian 
rendering. 

A set-back was, however, experienced in the attempt 
to classicize English poetry ; Hall satirized the move- 
ment,^ and it received its death-blow in Daniel's 
Defense of Rhyme. ^ It was a part of a similar reaction 
felt no less in other directions. With the growth of 
the Renaissance in Europe, Italian words and ex- 
pressions had been introduced into other languages 

1 Spingarn, op. cit., p. 264. 

2 Ibid., p. 293. Jacopo Castelvetro, who had lectured on 
poetics in Paris (where he may have met Sidney), published in 
London, in 1585, Julius Cccsar Stella's Epic on Columbus, and 
dedicated it to Raleigh in appreciation of his exploits. 

2 Ibid., p. 290. 

* Vide Cunliffe, The Infuence of Seneca on the Elizabethan 
Drama, London, 1893. 

* Satires, I, 6. ® Spingarn, p. 298. 



36o ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

and this movement was now opposed in its turn ; thus, 
in France, Henri Estienne ridiculed such imitation 
in his celebrated Dialogues du Fraiigoys Italianize. 

The feeling was undoubtedly growing that every 
nation should take pride in developing its lan- 
guage, without borrowing from classical or Italian 
sources. This movement, which was intended as a 
reaction against Italy, was really the counterpart of 
a similar one begun by Bembo^ and the Purists. In 
England, however, the problem was somewhat different. 
Not only was the English language burdened by "ink- 
horn " terms as they were then known, but the dif- 
ferent continental languages, especially the Italian, 
contributed to form its vocabulary. This tendency 
had begun already with Wyatt, who borrowed words 
here and there.^ Thomas Wilson had complained 
of those who, returning from foreign travel, " powder 
their talk with oversea language; . . . some seek 
so far for outlandish English, that they forget alto- 
gether their mother's language ; . . . another chops 
in with Enghsh Italianated and applieth the Italian 
phrase to our English speaking." ^ E. K. likewise, in 
his defence of the Shepheard^ s Calendar, spoke of the 
English language as a " hodge-podge of all other 
speeches," and alluded to those who desired to patch 

1 Harvey was familiar with the works of Bembo. The first 
lectures he gave at Cambridge were based on his ideas. Vide 
Morley, English Writers, 1892, IX, 17 et seq. 

2 Cf. Sonnet XV, " Avising the bright beams," from the 
Italian avvisare. 

3 Art of Rhetoric t f. 82 b. 



ITALIAN INFLUENCE IN ENGLISH POETRY 36 1 

up its holes " with pieces and rags of other languages." 
There were Englishmen who proclaimed their tongue 
to be "barren" and "barbarous."^ On the other 
hand, John Kepers spoke of the necessity of making 
new words, and thought this could best be effected 
by those " conversant in foreign writers." ^ Greene's 
language was interlarded with Italian words and ex- 
pressions. Nash, however, was the great example 
of this tendency. He wrote of those who objected 
to " the multitude of my boisterous compound words, 
and the often coining of Italianate verbs, which end 
all in ize, as mummianize, tympanize, tyrannize." 
He had made use of such words because, more than 
any other language, English swarmed with monosyl- 
lables, which he likened to small currency in a shop- 
keeper's box. His task had been to exchange these 
small coins " four into one and others into more, ac- 
cording to the Greek, French, Spanish, and Italian."^ 
Harvey, however, accused Nash of quite renouncing his 
natural English accent in his affectation of Tuscanism. 
Others likewise wrote against the foreign danger in 
the language. Sir John Cheke argued for English to 
be written " clean and pure," and without borrowing 
from other tongues.* Mulcaster and Ascham both ad- 
vocated its use without foreign expressions. Even Gas- 
coigne, who had taken much from the Italian, prided 
himself on retaining old English words rather " than in 

1 Guazzo, preface. 

2 Tke Courtier'' s Academy^ introduction. 

3 Nash, IV, 6 ct seq. * Castiglione, op. cit., p. 12. 



362 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

borrowing of other languages, such epithets and ad- 
jectives as smell of the inkhorn."^ 

VII 

The Italian influence in English fiction in the six- 
teenth century was on the one hand that of Boccaccio, 
on the other that of Sannazaro. The first was to show it- 
self especially in the tales of love, intrigue and adventure 
of Robert Greene, who had himself travelled in Italy. 
The scenes of many of his novels were laid there, while 
his stories were drawn largely from Italian sources ; 
Perimides and Philomela^ for instance, was so closely 
imitated from Boccaccio that it amounted almost to 
a translation.^ Greene proved himself thoroughly 
familiar with the literature and ideas of the Peninsula. 
He described the Italianate Englishmen returning 
home with vices acquired abroad ; he himself con- 
fessed to have done this.^ Although the origin of 
the style he made use of still remains a disputed 
point, the names of his love tales, Mamillia, Arbasto, 
Alcida and Pandosto give a clew to the Itahan sources 
of his inspiration. 

Greene, as a novelist, found his successors in Nicho- 
las Breton and Emanuel Ford, who was also an imitator 
of Boccaccio. If Boccaccio offered the model for all 
stories of intrigue, the pastoral novel of Sannazaro, 
which revived in Renaissance Italy the Arcadian tales 

^ Works, preface. 

2 M. A. Scott, Proc. Mod. Lang. Assoc, 1898, p. 250. 

3 R. Greene, VI, 24; X, 6, 73; XI, 217, etc. 



ITALIAN INFLUENCE IN ENGLISH POETRY 363 

of late Greek literature, was to prove no less popular in 
England. Sannazaro's romance of the ideal love of shep- 
herds and shepherdesses amid the scenes of an imagi- 
nary poetic landscape possessed little human interest 
and but slight action. These elements were later sup- 
plied by his Portuguese imitator, Jorge de Monte- 
mayor, who added to the conventional Arcadianism in- 
cidents from real life. Sidney, in his Ajradia, united 
the two models, combining certain elements of ro- 
mantic adventure which he added to the pastoral sim- 
pHcity. The lyrics he introduced likewise imitated the 
example of Sannazaro, who interspersed poetry with 
prose. Sidney's descriptions called up other Itahan 
reminiscences ; the one of the beautiful Philoclea, for 
instance, may well have been suggested by the paint- 
ings of Titian and Veronese he had seen in Venice.^ 

Robert Greene's Menaphoji and Pandosto, both of 
which were Arcadian in style, breathed the spirit of the 
Italian pastoral novel ; Thomas Lodge, also, who had 
imitated the Italian lyric poets in his Margaret of 
America^ copied Sannazaro in Rosalind, from which, 
later, Shakespeare drew the plot of his own semi- 
pastoral drama. 

Before the vogue of the pastoral novel had set in, 
however, numerous translations of Italian novelle and 
romances had been made. The tale of Titus and 
GisippuSy translated by Sir Thomas Elyot, was prob- 
ably the earliest EngHsh rendering of Boccaccio in 

1 Jusserand, English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare, 
p. 244. 



364 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

the sixteenth century. It only began the long list 
of such translations. Painter's Palace of Pleasure 
appearing in 1566, Fenton's Tragical Discourses a 
year later, and the collections which followed by For- 
tescue/ Pettie/ Smythe/ Turbervile/ and others, fa- 
miliarized Englishmen with an entirely different class 
of literature. They could now read the tales of Ser 
Giovanni, Straparola, Bandello and the followers of 
Boccaccio.^ Some stories were directly translated 
from the Italian, others from their French versions as 
in the case of Bandello. So great was the popularity 
of these tales that an English novel of the time in 
order to secure a larger sale, was falsely stated to be 
a translation from the Italian, foreign words being 
even introduced to mislead the reader,^ George Gas- 
coigne, likewise, in his English imitation of a novella, 
the adventures of Don Ferdinando Geronimi, pre- 
tended to be translating a story by " Bartello." 

Ladies were said to " entertain Bandel or Ariosto in 
their closets," '^ and Ascham spoke of such books 
being " sold in every shop in London." Their popu- 

^ T. Fortescue, Forest or Collection of Histories, 1571. 

2 George Pettie, Pettie''s Palace of Pettie his Pleasure, 1576. 

3 Robert Smythe, Strange and Tragical Histories, 1 5 77. 
* Tragical Tales translated by Turbervile, 1587. 

^ Vide L. Fraenkel, Zeitschrift fiir Vergleichende Litteratur, 
III, IV. 

® The pitiful History of two loving Italians, Gaulfrido and 
Bernardo. . . . Translated out of Italian into English metre by 
John Drout, 1570. 

7 Paulus Jovius, preface by N. W. to Daniel's translation. 



ITALIAN INFLUENCE IN ENGLISH POETRY 365 

larity and licentiousness resulted in the inevitable re- 
action. Stephen Gosson wrote of the devil sending 
over " many wanton Italian books which, being trans- 
lated into Enghsh, have poisoned the old manners of 
our country with foreign delights." ^ Ascham's objec- 
tions are too well known to need further repetition. 
In 1599 many of these books were ordered to be 
burned, and, to use Warton's own words, the Stationer's 
Hall " underwent as great purgation as was carried on 
in Don Quixote's library." 

The translations of the Italian novelle were to 
awaken further interest in Italy among the people at 
large. Italy gave the subject-matter and incidents to 
such a tale of adventure as Jack Wilton, although its 
literary form was Spanish. Italy offered, so to speak, 
the stage setting and scenery for the Elizabethan 
dramatists. Its richer life, with its promise of adven- 
ture and bloodshed, gave free rein to their thoughts. 
The crimes of Italy were destined to furnish the sub- 
ject-matter for nearly half the tragedies written in 
the reigns of Elizabeth and James.^ The dramatists, 
in addition, could borrow plots ready made from 
Italian novelle at a time when plagiarism was thought 
legitimate. The Italian drama in itself had but little 
direct influence in England. A morahty play called 
Free Wyl had been translated both by Hoby and 
Cheke, and Ochino's Tragedy was likewise rendered 
into English by Bishop Ponet. Still another famous 

^ Plays confuted in Five Actions. 
2 Vernon Lee, Euphorion, p. 70. 



366 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

morality, the Conflict of Conscience^ had for its hero 
one Francis Spira, an Italian lawyer, who, for purely 
worldly reasons, abandoned his Protestant convictions. 
The popularity of such plays in England was due 
rather to their religious lessons than to intrinsic lit- 
erary merit. The Italian influence on the English 
drama came chiefly through the translation of novelk, 
although the dumb show and the play within the play 
were both of Itahan origin. Italian examples, how- 
ever, aided greatly the transition from morality to 
comedy in England.^ George Gascoigne's Supposes, 
a translation of Ariosto's Sicppositi, which appeared 
in 1566, was the first Enghsh prose comedy, and with 
it began the refinement of dialogue. 

It is interesting to note that an Italian company, 
under a certain Drusiano, acted in London in 1577,^ 
their improvised dialogue being commented on by 
Hieronimo in Kyd's Spanish Tragedy : — 

The Italian tragedians were so sharp of wit, 

That in one hour's meditation 

They would perform anything in action. 

Italian words and expressions were by no means 
unusual on the Elizabethan stage. Gascoigne intro- 
duced them in a masque.^ Even Shakespeare made 
occasional use of them, while Marston and Ford both 
brought in Italian sentences.* 

^ Ward, English Dramatic Literature, I, 145. 
2 J. P. Collier, History of English Dramatic Poetry, III, 398. 
^ Gascoigne, edit. W. C. Hazlitt, I, 86 et seq. 
^ Vide I Antoyiio and Mellida, II, i, 212, III, i, 275. ^Tis 
Pity She's a Whore, IV, iii, passim. 



ITALIAN INFLUENCE IN ENGLISH POETRY 367 

In addition to what they were able to learn from 
the novelle, Elizabethan dramatists obtained furtlier 
insight into Italian manners and customs from the 
many manuals of courtesy which were translated into 
English. They found depicted in them a society far 
more cultivated and refined than anything which 
existed in England in that age. Such books taught 
them the existence of a new world and a new Hfe. 
At the same time, the dialogue form, so popular 
among Italians, and in which these books were written, 
gave English dramatists the models for their prose 
conversations. 

Tancred afid Gistnimda, produced in 1568, was the 
first English drama, the plot of which is known to have 
been based on an Italian tale. Not long afterward 
every Elizabethan playwright was borrowing from the 
novelle. In parallel movement the more learned poets, 
such as Sackville and Gascoigne, from reading Seneca 
and his Italian imitators, began themselves to write 
Enghsh plays.^ The Italian influence in the English 
drama was thus twofold. On the one side it con- 
tributed to bring to life the ancient forms of tragedy, 
and teach the canons of Aristode as interpreted in 
Italy. This conscious classical influence, first brought 
in through translations, imposed the unities on the 
later Elizabethan drama. Nevertheless, it was with 
few exceptions destined to barrenness, for Fulke 
Greville's plays are hardly more than literary curios- 
ities. On the other hand, the Italian romantic side 

1 Ward, I, 117, 144. 



368 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

influenced the spirit of the EHzabethan drama, by in- 
fusing it with its own ideals of virtii. The unconscious 
influence of Italy proved a living breath to English 
playwrights, who found their subject-matter in its tales 
of passions and crimes. 

Many signs of Italian influence are apparent in 
the dramas of the period. Gosson alluded to the | 
" bawdy comedies " in Italian furnishing the playhouses 
in London.^ One play by the name of the Orlando 
Furioso was presented on the stage, another called 
Machiavelli was acted at the Rose Theatre. It must 
be acknowledged, however, that many of the so-called 
Machiavellian sayings of the dramatists were so only 
in the popular Elizabethan sense of the name, and 
appear to have been inspired rather by Gentillet's 
polemic.^ Nevertheless, it can scarcely be doubted 
that Machiavelli's doctrine of virtu fitted in with the 
ideas of the age. It animated Marlowe's heroes, who 
first brought his spirit into the English drama. All 
of them are governed by the craving for the infinite, 
either in wealth, knowledge, or power, attainable through 
force of will, regardless of the means employed. In 
Tamburlaine he represented energy and strength, in 
contrast to the weakness of Mycetes. So Faustus, to 
obtain forbidden knowledge, was ready to sacrifice his 
soul. Barabas likewise typified hatred and revenge, 
while Mortimer represented personal ambition car- 
ried to extreme. All his plays were thus inspired by 

^ Plays confuted in fine actions. 
2 Meyer, op. cit., p. 43 et seq. 



ITALIAN INFLUENCE IN ENGLISH POETRY 369 

the same desire — to bring to a dramatic climax the 
consequences produced by the determination of will 
power in its pursuit of selfish objects.^ Machiavelli 
himself was brought on the stage as the impersona- 
tion of all villany.^ 

Shakespeare's knowledge of Italy, like his own life, 
remains a paradox. On the one hand, the remarkable 
amount of information he possessed about Italian 
cities does not seem as if it could have been acquired 
except from personal observation. On the other, cer- 
tain of the errors he made were of such a nature as 
almost to preclude the possibility of his having been 
there. Thus, for instance, Valentine is supposed to 
travel by sea from Verona to Milan, while Prospero 
embarks on board a ship at the gates of Milan.^ 

His plays treating of Italian subjects were of three 
kinds. In such as Othello and the Merchant of Venice 
he showed undeniable knowledge of Italy. In a sec- 
ond class, comprising Rojneo and Juliet and the Ta7n- 
ing of the Shrew, a certain knowledge of Italy is seen, 
though not more than could be gathered from hearsay 
and books. Last of all were such dramas as The 
Tempest and the Wiiiter's Tale, where the locality and 
names were alone Italian.'* Thus only the first kind 
remains not easily exphcable ; even granting that he 
obtained information from the tales of travellers, and 

1 Courthope, IT, 405. 2 jg^ of Malta, prologue. 

^ Two Gentlemen of Verona, I, I, 71; The Tempest, I, II, 
129-144. 

4 Vide Elze, Shak. Jahrhuch, XIII, XIV, XV. 

2B 



370 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

from such books as Thomas's History of Italy, there 
seems no sufficient reason for his preferring Venice 
and Padua. Neither Florence nor Rome attracted 
him in the same way. His interest in the North can 
be accounted for in part by his fondness for Bandello 
and certain of the novellieri ; but this does not tell 
all. Nor for that matter does his ridicule ^ of Enghsh- 
men returning home from foreign travel dissatisfied 
with their surroundings, prove, as some have thought, 
that he had not been abroad. He himself in after 
years made fun of the sonnet he had once been so 
fond of. 

If Shakespeare was ever in Italy, it was not as an 
ordinary traveller. His exact knowledge was confined 
almost to Venice and Padua; other places he knew 
of only by hearsay. Nor does he mention the long 
journey across the Alps. He went there, if at all, on 
board ship, perhaps as a sailor or as an accountant or 
clerk in the employ of some commercial house in 
London, for direct trade between the two places was 
then of common occurrence. It is barely possible 
that his name may still be found among the papers of 
some London merchant ; his visit in such a capacity 
would alone account for his partial knowledge of Italy, 
coupled with its gigantic blunders. It would explain 
both his fondness for Venetia as well as much of the 
mystery surrounding his early life. 

In spite of the uncertainty and lack of direct proof 
which attends Shakespeare's travels, more certain ground 

1 Vide p. 164. 



ITALIAN INFLUENCE IN ENGLISH POETRY 371 

is reached in approaching the books he read. The 
sources of fourteen of his dramas are found in ItaUan fic- 
tion. Not only was he familiar with the ItaHan novelle, 
even such as the story of The Merchant of Venice, which 
was then inaccessible in English, but, as might be ex- 
pected, he had read many of the books relating to Italian 
subjects then published in England. Touchstone's de- 
scription of the various forms of a He and Orlando's 
wrestling bout with Charles was probably suggested by 
Saviolo's Practise. Likewise the lines 

Veneiia, Venetia, 

Chi non ti vede, non ii pretia,^ 

if not taken from Florio's Second Frtntes, which he 
might well have seen in manuscript, could be found in 
James Sanford's collection of Italian proverbs. Shake- 
speare, however, undoubtedly knew Florio when he 
was a proteg^ of Southampton.^ 

In spite of the books he read and his acquaintance 
with Italy and Italians, perhaps even his knowledge of 
Bruno's philosophy^ and his allusions to Machiavellian 
ideas,^ Shakespeare's individual genius was far too 
great to be deeply touched by outward influences. 
His spirit, like Spenser's, remained English, unaffected 
by foreign imitation. At the same time the Italian 

1 Love's Labour'^s Lost, IV, II, lOO. 

2 S. Lee, op. cit., p, 85. 

3 Vide R. Konig, Shak. Jahrbuck, XI; R. Beyersdorff, Shak. 
Jahrbuch, XXVI. 

4 /// Henry VL, III, ii, 182; Titus Andronicus, V, i, 125; 
Merry Wives of Windsor, III, i, 102, etc. 



3/2 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

atmosphere with which he invested his dramas aided 
to bring out their beauty, while the novelle on which | 
he based his plots set free his imagination. 

The Italian influence in English literature was thus 
twofold. On the one hand, it taught the value and 
beauty of artistic form in poetry, and introduced new 
poetic models ; on the other, it gave, so to speak, the 
raw material from which the Ehzabethan dramatists 
drew the subject-matter of their inspiration. At the 
same time it offered a model for the novel and the 
epic, and the critical criteria for the judgment of 
literature. The first two influences were romantic ; 
the influence of the Italian humanists, on the other 
hand, was classical. While this influence was para- 
mount in criticism, it yet failed to attain any results 
in poetry and the drama, the desultory attempts made 
to introduce it in England proving sterile. The 
romantic influences, however, did not fetter the origi- 
nality of English poetry; the models of Petrarch and 
Ariosto breathed new life into it, while the tales of 
Boccaccio and his followers stirred the imagination 
of Ehzabethan dramatists. 



APPENDIX A 

ENGLISH CATHOLICS IN ROME 

Perhaps the most permanent and binding chain, 
which from the earliest times famiharized Italy with 
England, was the constant stream of pilgrims journey- 
ing to and from Rome. These pilgrimages had already 
begun long before the Conquest and had continued 
through the Middle Ages. In the fourteenth century 
one John Shepherd, a London merchant, established 
a hospital in Rome for English pilgrims and travel- 
lers. So early as 727, King Ina had founded a hos- 
pice for Saxon pilgrims beyond the Tiber. The English 
records of these early days are either lacking or scanty. 
Some information can be obtained, however, from 
a partial register of the pilgrims written in the first 
years of the sixteenth century.^ The guests then 
received were of two kinds, — noblemen {iiobiles) 
so called, who paid for their board, and poor people 
{pavperes) who were lodged free. The names and 
occupations of the guests were in each case given ; 
thus John Vaughan, priest, John Williams, knight, 
Thomas Halsey, student at Bologna, shows the general 
nature of the lodgers. Most of them were designated 
either as scholars or priests ; but others lodged there 
as well, even the ambassadors sent by Henry the Seventh 

^ Liber Primus Instrumeniorum, English College, Rome. 

373 



374 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

to the Vatican, Edward Scot and John Alen, the first 
of whom died of fever in the hospital. In one year, 
1505, fifty-five persons were registered as "nobles." 
Among the poor were the names of an occasional 
Oxford student, of sailors, and again of a dozen Welsh- 
men, together with a pilgrimage of priests from Nor- 1 
folk and Suffolk. In all over two hundred pilgrims 
went there in a single year. Women, also, were among 
the pilgrims, such names occurring as Juliana Lutt of 
London, and Elizabeth Welles, a widow, of Norwich. 
This constant intercourse with Rome which had always 
existed must have spread a knowledge of Italy among 
Englishmen ; the first English accounts of travel in 
Italy were certainly written by just such pilgrims. 

Although it would be outside the province of this 
study to sketch even hastily the development of the 
English Reformation, at the same time certain of its 
effects must be alluded to among the connecting links 
between England and Italy, with the growth of Prot- 
estantism pious English Catholics began more and 
more to take refuge in the latter country. While this 
was not so much the case in the first half of the six- 
teenth century, when strong hopes were entertained 
that there might be a return to Rome, after these had 
vanished with the death of Mary, the movement be- 
came an important one, and numbers of Englishmen 
found new homes on the banks of the Tiber and else- 
where in Italy. At the same time the beginnings of 
the movement may be found in the period now treated. 
It will only be necessary to mention very briefly cer- 



ENGLISH CATHOLICS IN ROME 375 

tain of the English Cathohcs of this time who resided 
in Italy, chiefly on account of their religious convic- 
tions. They form, as it were, the nucleus around 
which the Italian influences surrounding them could 
take action. Without ever ceasing to be Englishmen, 
many of them yet show to a marked degree the effect 
of their environment. John Gierke was an example 
of this ; after graduating at Oxford, he travelled in 
Italy and lived there for many years, writing books on 
theology, several of which were in Italian ; he openly 
professed his preference for its literature to the Greek 
and Roman. George Lily, the son of the grammarian, 
was another one who lived in Rome, where he became 
noted for his erudition, and was protected by Gardinal 
Pole. Still a third was Ellis Heywood, brother of the 
poet, who, after graduating at All Souls, travelled in 
Italy, where he was received in the household of 
Reginald Pole, and was appointed by him one of his 
secretaries ; later in life he became a Jesuit. He also 
wrote in very good Italian two dialogues ^ purporting to 
be Sir Thomas More's conversations with certain learned 
men of his time on virtue and love, the great Renais- 
sance topics of discussion. The locality selected was 
the garden of More's country-house near London, in 
accordance with the Itahan fashion of laying the 
scenes of conversation in the open air. Apart from 
this, however, there was little truly English about the 
book which might as well have been written by some 
Itahan. 

^ II Moro d^ Helisco Hevodo Inglese, Florence, 1556. 



376 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

Both Lily and Heywood centre around the greater 
commanding figure o/ Cardinal Reginald Pole. It was 
he who, during the period when England was drifting 
away from Rome, stood for the highest type of Eng- 
lish Catholic churchman, and, more than any one else, 
maintained in Italy the dignity of England. \ In him- 
self he formed one of the great links between the two 
countries. A connection of the royal family, he had 
first studied at Oxford under Linacre and Latimer, and 
had graduated at Magdalen. In 152 1 he was sent by 
the king to Padua, then known as Helladis Bellas, to 
continue his studies ; while there he made friends with 
some of the great scholars of the time, Leonicus and 
Longolius, through whom he became acquainted with 
Bembo. He met there, as well, Thomas Lupset, who 
had gone to study in Italy by the advice of Vives, the 
Spanish humanist, and two men who were to be his Hfe- 
long friends, Ludovico Priuh, a young Venetian noble- 
man, and Caspar Contarini, who later became cardinal. 
At Padua, Pole entertained considerably, and on ac- 
count of his royal kinship much attention was paid 
him by the authorities. His interest in learning he 
maintained through life ; the scholar Longolius, who 
died in his house, left him his hbrary. When Pole re- 
turned to Padua ten years later, he took into his house- 
hold Lazzaro Buonamici, a well-known classical scholar, 
to study once more Greek and Latin. But Pole, 
in spite of his interest in humanism and learning, 
unlike his Italian friends, cared nothing for literary 
fame. His one aim and object in Hfe, to which he 



ENGLISH CATHOLICS IN ROME 377 

devoted himself with unswerving purpose, was to re- 
store in England the supremacy of Rome ; and though 
he failed in this, he yet stands out in bold relief as 
one of the commanding figures of the age, and as 
the highest type of learned churchman. He gave 
a personal example (for the alleged scandals of his 
private life have been proved untrue) that it was 
possible to live in Italy and be unaffected by its 
vices. He himself had refused from Henry the 
Eighth the highest inducements to approve of his 
divorce ; he had been steadfast through thick and thin 
to what he believed to be right, and though he saw 
gleams of triumph when Mary came to the throne, his 
own death fortunately prevented him from realizing 
that his life's work had been in vain. As one of the 
great links between Italy and England, his influence, 
however, was considerable. To each country he held 
up the mirror of the other's virtues. And while 
Englishmen saw in his presence the authority and 
grandeur of Rome, to Itahans he reflected the piety 
and austerity of England. 

There is little use in going through the catalogue of 
churchmen who contributed to familiarizing the one 
land with the other. Italians, just as before, came to 
England ; Giberti, Bishop of Verona, who posed as 
the special protector of England ; Ghinucci, Bishop of 
Worcester and of Salisbury ; and Cardinal Campeggio, 
who had first been sent to England to urge Henry 
the Eighth to unite with the other princes of Chris- 
tendom in a campaign against the Turk, and returned 



378 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

as judge to listen to the divorce suit of Henry against 
Catherine of Aragon. In Italy, on the other hand, 
lived such men as Sir Edward Carne, sent to Rome as 
excusator of Henry the Eightli, who had been cited 
to appear there in person. Carne remained there 
until his death, the Pope ostensibly keeping him as 
hostage and refusing to allow him to depart, although 
he gave him the government of the English hospital 
at Rome. The detention, it is now known, was en- 
tirely voluntary on his part, and the Pope's seeming 
refusal was merely that Carne's property in England 
should not be confiscated. 

It will be seen, from the few facts mentioned, how 
great were the possibilities of an interchange of ideas 
between the two countries. Interchange, however, is 
a misnomer. It cannot be said that the ideas and 
culture of England had the slightest influence in 
Italy. ;The Italians were only shocked at the au- 
dacity of the monarch who dared break loose from 
that most national of institutions, the Papacy. How 
deep was their interest in England was apparent 
when the news arrived of Mary's accession to the 
throne, and it was supposed that England would 
again become Catholic. There were rejoicings all 
over Italy, and in Florence alone a solemn mass 
was held, followed by a procession and display 
of fireworks, to celebrate England's return to papal 
obedience.^ 

^ Settimanni, Diario Fiorentino, II, Pt. I, 737, Archives 
Florence. 



ENGLISH CATHOLICS IN ROME 379 

In England, during the reign of Elizabeth, the 
Papacy was looked upon by Protestants as the arch 
enemy. It was true that every influence, every ac- 
tion, every attempt, to win back what had been lost 
to the Catholic Church, radiated from Rome. It was 
there that English Catholics found a new home and 
sanctuary where they could be safe and secure from 
insults and injury. Between Catholics in England 
and English Catholics in Italy there was a constant 
intercourse, a going and coming, a series of move- 
ments and ties, all the closer for being below the 
surface ; and when gradually the hope for the recon- 
version of England disappeared, numbers of English- 
men forsook their native land and passed the remainder 
of their lives in the country of their adoption. 

The most prominent among English Catholics of this 
later time was Cardinal Allen, who, in 1575, had been 
summoned to Rome by Gregory the Thirteenth, to give 
advice regarding a college for Englishmen which the 
Pope proposed to found. A few years later the old 
Enghsh hospital, with all its revenues, was annexed 
to it. The seminary, as a result of internal dissen- 
sions and the jealousy between the English and Welsh 
students, was placed, in 1579, in charge of the English 
province of the Society of Jesus,^ and under the pro- 
tection of a cardinal. It was presided over by a 

1 H. Foley, Records of the English Province of the Society of 
yesus, VI, 541. Vide Cardinal Sega, Relazione del Collegia hi- 
glese, 1596, Fondo Ottoboni, 2473 ff., 185-226, Vatican Library, 
Rome (cited also by Foley op. cit.). 



380 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

rector, not necessarily an Englishman. A year later it 
received its first stable endowment and was chartered 
by an apostolic brief.^ 

On entering the college an oath was administered 
to the student. He was obhged to swear always to be 
ready at the order of the Pope or other lawful supe- 
rior, to take Holy Orders, and to proceed to England 
for the aid {i.e. conversion) of souls. The form of 
interrogation used is an interesting one.^ The novice 
was questioned, among other things, regarding his rela- 
tives, and especially of their rehgious beHefs ; of his own 
studies, and also of the health of his body and mind. 
He was asked whether he had been a heretic or schis- 
matic ; how, and by what means he had become a 
Catholic j what things had happened to him on ac- 
count of this, and if he had suffered anything ; last of 
all, what were the reasons which prompted him to 
follow an ecclesiastical life. 

Between 1579, the year in which the college was 
founded, and 1603, that of the death of EHzabeth, over 
three hundred and fifty EngUshmen studied there and 
were admitted to the priesthood. Each year the col- 
lege sent out its missionaries to England " for the help 
of perishing souls." Before leaving, they went to kiss 
the feet of the Pope, who supplied them with funds 
for their journey. In the records which have been 
preserved, after each one's name there followed a 

1 Foley, VI, 70. 

2 Vide Stevenson, Roman Transcripts^ English College 
Series, Vol. 9, Record Office, London. 



ENGLISH CATHOLICS IN ROME 38 1 

brief account of his fate ; sometimes it was only im- 
prisonment ; but often the f actus est ttiat'ty}- and the 
accounts of those hanged, quartered, and disembow- 
elled showed the perils and dangers which awaited 
such missionaries in the task they had taken on them- 
selves.^ To the stanch English Protestant, however, 
the college of Rome seemed a centre of popish 
abominations and conspiracies, and Anthony Mun- 
day, in his English Roman Life, described what he 
called the treasonable practices and plans concocted 
there. 

Any account of the graduates of the college, who, 
sent back to England, did their best to make converts 
and stir up disaffection against Elizabeth, would par- 
take too much of both political and religious history 
to have any place in the present study. The lives and 
martyrdoms of such enthusiasts as Parsons, Campion 
and Southwell prove interesting reading, however." 
Robert Parsons was perhaps the ablest of them all. 
At one time a fellow at Balliol, he had studied medi- 
cine at Padua and then became a Jesuit. With Cam- 
pion, he led the first Jesuit mission to England, which 
brought many back to the old faith. When his com- 
panion was executed after prolonged tortures, he him- 
self escaped discovery and fled to the Continent to 
plot with Philip of Spain to attack England. His life 
was spent in one single devotion to restore Catholicism 
in England, even at the cost of foreign subjugation, 

1 Vide Cardinal Sega, Ms. cit. 

2 Vide E. L. Taunton, Jesuits in England. London, 1901. 



382 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

and he hoped finally to attain it through the conversion 
of James the Sixth of Scotland, who he recognized 
would succeed to the English throne. " I would give 
up my very Hfe blood," he wrote,^ " to see him 
converted and king of England." 

England through the long reign of EHzabeth be- 
came the seat of many Cathohc conspiracies which 
were hatched for the most part in Italy. In the fore- 
most rank among the conspirators in England was 
Ruberto Ridolfi, against whom nothing could ever be 
proved, in spite of the fact that he was implicated in 
nearly all. His career was a remarkable one ; he had 
been brought up as a banker, and, going to London, 
acquired an influential position in social and mercan- 
tile circles. In addition he aided the different Catho- 
lic conspiracies, but escaped all punishment. The 
role he played can best be seen from a letter to the 
Pope.^ He had been the secret agent of Pius the 
Fifth, at a time when the Vatican was unable to send 
its nuncios to England, and had been in touch with 
all the Catholic noblemen who were anxious to serve 
the Church. In order to prevent EHzabeth from as- 
sisting the Protestants in France and Flanders, the 
Duke of Northumberland with other noblemen had 
begun an insurrection in the border counties intended 
to keep the queen in check ; but the conspiracy fell 
through and its leaders were imprisoned or executed. 

1 Letter written in December, 1602 (indexed wrongly, as 
being by Possevino), Arch. Med., 4185, Florence. 

2 Arch. Med., 4185. 



ENGLISH CATHOLICS IN ROME 383 

Ridolfi, however, escaped, and begged the Pope to 
reimburse him for his outlays and property, all of 
which had been confiscated. 

The annals of this period were full of accounts of 
Catholic conspiracies. But the intrigues of Italian 
churchmen and English Jesuits came to an untimely 
end with the destruction of the Armada, and, though 
their efforts did not cease, the issue was never there- 
after in doubt. 

In addition to the students of the English College 
at Rome, many other Englishmen lived in Italy toward 
the end of the sixteenth century. In a report made 
to the Pope in 1596 by Cardinal Sega, on the condi- 
tion of the English College, he ascribed its disturb- 
ances to the Englishmen residing outside the college, 
and recommended in consequence that all communi- 
cations between students and outsiders should come 
to an end. Italy was then full of English Catholics. 
Anthony Munday spoke of Cardinal Borromeo's con- 
fessor in Milan as one Robert Griffin, a Welshman, who 
sent him to the house of an English priest there, named 
Harris. Another EngHsh Catholic of prominence was 
Thomas Goldwell Bishop of St. Asaph, who studied at 
Padua in his youth and had been a friend of Cardinal 
Pole. Many of these Catholics proved themselves 
stanch Englishmen, however, and Sir Richard Shelley, 
known in Italy as Signor Conchilio, sent valuable in- 
formation from Venice about the Spanish Armada. 
It is scarcely necessary to mention more names ; 
enough has already been said here and elsewhere to 



384 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 

indicate the extent and permanence of one of the 
great chains which Hnked Italy to England. 

Occasionally the roles were reversed and an ardent 
EngUsh Protestant would penetrate Italy filled with 
desire for proselytizing. Such a one was Richard 
Atkins, fanatic and martyr, who went to Rome with 
the intention of converting the Pope. After he had 
committed several excesses against the Roman Church, 
and had insulted the host, he was denounced, tortured, 
and finally executed. Chamberlain spoke in his let- 
ters ^ of EngHshmen " clapt up in the Inquisition at 
Rome." Oftener it was Italy that had for its effect 
the Catholic conversion of Protestants. So it turned 
out with Sir Tobie Matthew, who was to be known 
as " the most Itahanate Englishman of his day." 
His parents, who had puritanical leanings, refused 
their consent when he first expressed a wish to see 
the antiquities and sights of the country of which he 
had heard so much ; but he went in spite of them. In 
Florence he met some of the English Catholics who 
lived there, among others Sir George Petre, Robert 
Canfield and one Partridge, a nephew of Sir Henry 
Western. He then moved on to Siena, that he might 
be " with Italians only in order to learn their language." 
In Rome he met Robert Parsons, was received by 
Cardinal Pinelli, and while there became converted to 
CathoKcism. In after years he was ordained a priest ; 
he also translated Bacon into Italian. Sir Tobie Mat- 
thew is interesting as showing one of the reasons 

^ Chamberlain's Letters, March 5, 1600. 



ENGLISH CATHOLICS IN ROME 385 

for the distrust with which EngUsh Protestants re- 
garded Italy. Its influence had made him become 
a Cathohc, even a priest ; his tastes, his habits all 
became Italian : he had lost in their opinion his 
English manhood. 



20 



APPENDIX B 

ENGLISH ACCOUNTS OF ITALY IN THE SIX- 
TEENTH CENTURY 1 

-^ 1506. The Pilgrimage of Richard Guylforde to the 

Holy Land. 
■^ 1517- Sir Richard Torkington's Diary of his Pilgrim- 
age. 

1 54 7-1 549. The Travaile and Life of Sir Thomas 
Hoby (Eg. Ms., 2148, Brit. Mus.). 

1549. The History of Italy, by William Thomas. 

1563. Unton's Journey to Italy, written by Richard 
Smith (Sloan Ms., 18 13, Brit. Mus.). 

1573. Sidney's letters to Hubert Languet. 

1575. Jerome Turler — The Traveller : Description of 
Naples. 

1582. Anthony Munday — English Roman Life. 

1584-1600. Description of Italy — (Harleian Miscel- 
lany, XII). 

1585. J[ohn] F[lorio], translator — A Letter written 
from Rome, by an Itahan gentleman. 

1588. Edward Webbe's Travels — Account of Rome. 

1592. Description of Italy — (Lansdowne Ms., Brit. 
Mus., 775). 

1 Such incidental descriptions as are given by Nash in Jack 
Wilton, etc., Greene and the dramatists have not been included 
in this list. 

386 



APPENDIX B 387 

1593. Fynes Moryson — Account of his Visit to 
Italy. 

1596. Robert Dallington — Survey of Tuscany (pub- 
lished 1605). 

1599. G. Contarini — Government of Venice — trans- 
lated by L. Levvkenor. 

1599. Edwin Sandys — Europse Speculum (published 

1605). 

1600. J. B. Marlianus — Topography of Rome. 
1600. Samuel Levvkenor — Description of Italian 

Universities. 



APPENDIX C 

ITALIAN ACCOUNTS OF ENGLAND IN THE 
SIXTEENTH CENTURY i 



% 



1500 (area). A Relation of the Islands of England. 
1516. Travels of a Milanese in England — (Brit. 

Mus. Add. Mss., 24180). 
15 15-15 19. Sebastiano Giustiniani — Four Years at 

the Court of Henry the Eighth. 
1 53 1. Relazione di Lodovico Falier. 

1 55 1. Relazione di Daniele Barbaro. 

1552. Relazione d' Inghilterra, Petruccio Ubaldini 

(Add. Ms., 10169, Brit. Mus.). 

1554. Relazione del Giacomo Soranzo. 

15 54-1 5 5 8. Relazione di Anonimo del tempo della 
Regina Maria. 

1555. Ritratti d' Inghilterra di Giulio Raviglio. 

(Lib. Com. Siena, K. X. 29.) 
1557. Relazione di Giovanni Michele. 
1580 {circa). Relazione del Giovanni Sovico Milanees 

(Arch. Med. Flor., 4185). 

^ Only the more important descriptions have here been men- 
tioned. Accounts will also be found in looking through the 
Calendars of State Papers, Venetian, the Cena dei Ceneri of 
Giordano Bruno, Cardan's Diary, the Description of Paulo Gio- 
vio, and Botero's Geography, etc. 

388 



APPENDIX C 389 

15 73-1588. Relazione di Inghilterra, attributed to 
Nicolo Millino (Molino?), (cited by Sneyd, 
as being in the Earl of Leicester's Library 
at Holkham, Rel. of Eng., Camden Soc, 
1847). 



BIBLIOGRAPHY^ 

I. MANUSCRIPT SOURCES 

Florence. Archivio di Firenze. 

Atti Publici, 1498. Miscellaneous letters from Henry the 

Seventh, etc. 
Atti Publici, 1502. Miscellaneous letters. 
Carteggio Mediceo Avanti il Principato, filza 94. 
Carteggio Mediceo Avanti il Principato, filza 99. 
Carteggio Universale Mediceo, 371,372- 
Carteggio Mediceo, N. 5. 
Guardaroba Medicea, T. 34. Miscellaneous. 
Guardaroba Medicea, 293. Miscellaneous. 
Archivio Mediceo. Firenze, No. 4183. 

Lettere della Regina d' Inghilterra e del Re dall' anno 
1524 fino 1621. 
Archivio Mediceo, No. 4185. 

Varie Scritture, contenuti, notizie el Awisi d' Inghilterra 
dall' anno 1526 a 1625. 
Archivio di Firenze. 

Minute del 1545* fi^^a N. 6. . ., . 

Carte Strozziane, 1448-1588. Scritture che si nferiscono 

air Inghilterra del 1488 al 1588. 
Filza Strozziana, 294. 
Settimanni. 

Diario Fiorentino. Archivio Mediceo, Firenze. 

1 This bibliography is intended merely as a convenient enumer- 
ation of the principal manuscripts and books used in the prepara- 
tion of this study. A far more complete list of the numerous articles 
on the literary relations between England and Italy may be found in 
Betz's La Utterature Compare.. Further bibliographies can likewise 
be obtained from the invaluable Dictionary of National Biography. 



392 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Biblioteca Magliabecchiana. 
Duodo, Pietro. 
Relazione d' Inghilterra e Scozia. Scritto da un Segretario 
deir 111'"*' Sig^ Pietro Duodo, stato ambasciatore per la 
Signoria di Venezia appresso al Re Giacomo, 1606. 
Magliabecchiana. Ce. XXIV, Cod. 49. 
Biblioteca Capponi. Magliabecchiana Cassetta lO<* No. XVII. 
London. Brit. Mus. Addit. Mss., 24180. 

Travels of a Milanese Merchant in 1516. 
Brit. Mus. Addit. Mss., 4121, f. 265; addit. Mss., 4122, ff. 43, 

III, 139- 
[Cited by Harris Nicolas in his Edition of Davison's Poet- 
ical Rhapsody.] 
Brit. Mus. Cot. Mss. 
Nero, B. VI, f. i ; Nero, B. VII, passim ; Titus, B. II, f. 210; 
B. VII, f. 155; Vitellius, B. XIV, ff. 173, 241, 285. 
Brit. Mus. Mss., 4827. 

Nev^r Year's gifts of Queen Elizabeth. 
Brit. Mus. Harl. Ms., 284. 

Fragment of some noblemen's letters from Italy, 1603. 
Brit. Mus. Harl. Ms., 1878. 
Brit. Mus. Mss., 2481. 

Household Book of Henry VIIL 
Brit. Mus. Egert. Mss., 2148. 

Hoby, Sir Thomas. The Travails and Life of Sir Thomas 
Hoby; ff. 186-202, A Description of the State of Italy. 
Brit. Mus. Lansd. Mss., 775, ff. 105-128. 

A Description of the Estate of Italy in the year 1592. 
Brit. Mus. Addit. Mss., 10169. 

Michele, Giovanni. Relazione d' Inghilterra, 1557. 
[Contained also in Alberi, Ambasciatori Veneti.] 
Brit. Mus. Addit. Mss., 10169. 

Ubaldini, Petruccio. Relazione d' Inghilterra, circa 1555. 
Brit. Mus. Sloane Mss., 181 3. 

Unton, Sir Edward. Union's journey to Italy, written by 
Richard Smith, gentleman, some time servant to S' 
Edward Unton [1563]. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 393 

Public Record Office. 

Acontio, J. Study of History. (Dom. Series, Vol. XXXIV, 

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Series, 9 vols.) 
Venetian Bundle, No. i. 
Munich. Koniglichen Bibliothek Mss., Latin, 222. 

Letters of Pier Candido Decembrio and Duke Humphrey 
of Gloucester. 
Oxford. Bodleian Library. Ms. 587. 
Free, John. Letters. 
All Souls' Library. Ms. CLV. 
Rome, Vatican Library. 

Relazione del Collegio Inglese, 1596. Fondo Ottoboni, 

2473, ft. 185-226. 
[Cited by H. Foley in Records of English Jesuits.] 
English College. 

Liber Primus Instrumentorum. 
[Cited by H. Foley in Records of English Jesuits.] 
Siena. Libreria Communale K. X. 29. 

Raviglio, Giulio. Ritratti d' Inghilterra, 1555. 

II. PRINTED SOURCES 

Acontio, Jacopo. The true order and method of writing and 
reading Histories according to the precepts of Francisco 
Patrizio and Accontio Tridentino. ... By Thomas Blun- 
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Una Essortazione al Timor di Dio con Alcune rime Italiane 
novamente messe in luce. Londra circa 1580. 

Agnello, G. Esposizione di Giovanbattista Agnello Venetiano 
sopra un libro intitolato Apocalypsis spiritus secreti. Lon- 
dra, 1566. 

Alberi, E. Relazioni dello Impero Brittanico nel Secolo XVI 
Scritto da Veneti Ambasciatori e pubblicate dal Prof. 
Eugenio Alberi. Firenze, 1852. [Containing the rela- 
tions of Daniele Barbaro, Giovanni Michele, Lodovico 
Falier, Giacomo Soranzo, and an anonymous relation.] 



394 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

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Anglerius, Pietro Martire. The Decades of the New World 
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1555- 
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Aretino, Pietro. Epistole. 6 vols. Paris, 1609. 

Ariosto, L. Orlando Furioso. In English Heroical Verse by 
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AsCHAM, Roger. The Scholemaster. 1570. Edited by E. 
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Bale, John. Summarium Scriptorum Illustrium. Bale, 1557. 

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Barbaro, J., and Contarini, A. Travels to Tana and Persia. 
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1873. 
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Bryskett, Lodowick. a Discourse of Civil Life Containing 
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Cardano, Girolamo. Cardanus Comfort translated into Eng- 
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CONTARINI, G. The Commonwealth and Government of Venice 

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of Tuscany in the year of our Lord 1596. London, i6oq 
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It stood m the year of our Lord 1598. London (1606 ?) 
Daniel, S. Works. Ed. A. Grosart. 5 vols. London, 1885. 
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Harris Nicolas. London, 1826. 
Dowland, John. The First Book of Songs or Airs. London 

1597- 
Drayton, M. Poems. London, 1613. 

Drout,John. The pitiful History of two loving Italians: Gaul- 
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English metre by John Drout. London, 1570 

Ellis, Sir Henry. Letters of Eminent Literary Men. Camden 
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Elyot, Sir Thomas. The Governour. Edited by H. H. S. 

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Federici, M. Cesare. The Voyage and Travel of M. C^sar 
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Fenton, G. Golden Epistles . . . gathered as well out of the 
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Florio, John. First Fruites. London, 1578. 

' Florio's Second Fruites ... of divers but delightsome tastes 
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Giardino di Ricreatione nel quale crescono fronde, fiori e 
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Fraunce, Abraham. The Arcadian Rhetorike. Or the Pre- 
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The Whole Works of George Gascoigne, Esqmre. London, 

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Henry Iden. 1557. 
The Fearful Fancies of the Florentine Cooper . . . Translated 
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Gentile, Alberico. Regales Disputationes tres de Potestate 
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Gentillet, I. A Discourse . . . against Nicholas Machiavell. 
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Giovio Paolo. Descriptio Britannia, Scotte. Ex Libro Pa!? 

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INDEX 



Abell, J., 2IO. 

Accorambono, 307. 

d' Accorso, F., 180. 

Acontio, igi, 212, 309, 313. 

Adelmare, P, M., 189. 

Adrian de Castello, 90, 183 et 

•f^^M 319- 3-16. 
Adrian the Fourth, 51. 
^neas Sylvius, Piccolomini, 4, 

8 et seq., 14, 20, 25, 150, 180, 

214. 347. 
Alamanni, 351, 353. 
Albert!, L. B., 83. 
Albert!, The, 240. 
Alciati, 307. 
Aldus, 32, 34 et seq. 
Alen, J., 373. 
Alexander, 69 et seq., 92. 
Alexander the Sixth, 183. 
Allen, Cardinal, 379. 
Alunno, 106. 
Ambrose, 5. 

Ammonio, A., 182, 185, 319, 346. 
d'Anghiera, P. M., 279. 
Antonio de Lorenzo, 195. 
Aonio Paleario, 212. 
Areopagus, The, 357. 
Aretino, 105, 267, 344, 351 et seq, 
Argyropoulos, John, 25. 
Ariosto, 105,321,338 340 (f/J^"^., 

351. 353. 356, 364. 366, 372. 
Aristotle, 5 et seq., 32, 35, 294, 

325. 356, 367- 

Arthur, Prince, 36, 182, 

Arundel, Earl of, 190, 206 et seq. 

Arundel, Thomas, 8, 52. 

Ascham R,, 98, 108, 121, 158, 162 
et passhn, 214, 345, 357. 361 
364 et seq. I 

41 



Atkins, R., 159, 384. 
Augustine, 5. 

Bache, A., 236. 

Bacon, F., 113, 295, 384. 

Baldi, P., 197. 

Bandello, 168, 264 «., 364, 370. 

Bandinelli, B., 197. 

Barbaro, D., 223 et seq. 

Barbaro, J., 279. 

Barclay, A., 347. 

Bardi, G. de, 256. 

Bardi.The, 230, 235, 263 «., 265. 

Barker, W., 139. 

Barnes, Robert, 102, 336. 

Barnfield, 339. 

Bassani, The, 350. 

Bassano, 190. 

Beaufort, Cardinal, 12, 52. 

Beccaria, Antonio, 4. 

Beckynton , Thomas, xiet seq., 19. 

Bede, 9, 291. 

Bedford, Countess of, 99, iii et 

seq. 
Bedford, Duke of. 8. 
Bedford, Earl of, 90,98, iii, 201. 
Bedingfield, T., 70, no, 295 et 

seq., 308, 315. 
Bellay, Cardinal du 47. 
Bellay, Joachim du 138. 
Belli, Valerio, 204. 
Bembo, A., 262 n. 
Bembo, P., 48, 83 et seq., 330, 

360, 376. 
Benci, G., 240 et seq. 
Bernardi, 198. 
Beroaldo, 293. 
Bcssarion, 57. 
Bildstone, Nicholas, 12, 52. 
I 



412 



INDEX 



Bisset, Peter, 48. 
Bizari, P., 98, ill, 213. 
Blount, E., 309 n, 
Blundevile, T., 70, 309 n. 
Boccaccio, 4, 11, 33 «., 87, 105, 
108, 161, 317, 348, 362 et seg., 

372. 
Bodley, L., 353. 
Boeria, B. de, 37, 45, 188. 
Boiardo, 356. 
Bolton, E., 146, 358. 
Bonamicus, L., 146. 
Bonner, Edward, 54. 
Bonvisi, A., 43, 264 et seq., 267, 

276. 
Borde, Andrew, 79. 
Borgarucci, G., 189, 212. 
Borromeo, Cardinal, 383. 
Boscan, 319, 354. 
Botero, 215, 281 et seq. 
Bowkenham, Osbern, 15. 
Braun, 199. 
Breton, N., 362. 
Bruno, G., loi, 104 et seq., 192, 

215. 345 ^i- s^i; 356, 371- 
Bruno, Leonardo, 5, 7, 15, 20 n. 
Bryan, Sir Francis, 90, 186, 328. 
Bryskett, L., 75, 83, 356. 
Bubwith, 2^jn. 
J Buchanan, G., 347. 
"'Buckhurst, Lord, 275. 
Budaeus, 36. 
Bulkeley, Master, 15. 
Buonamici, L., 376. 
Purke, G,, 332. 
t^urleigh. Lord {vide also Cecil), 

99, 113, 160, 187. 
Burnet, 291. 
Bury, Richard de, 15. 
Butrigarius, G., 280. 
Byrd, N., 350. 

Cabots, The, 278, 280, 282. 
Cassar, 92. 
Caesar, Sir J., 189. 
Caius, 49 et seq. 
Caius Auberinus, 55. 



Caico, J., 212. 

Calepino, 294. 

Caliardi, 190. 

Camden, 200. 

Camoens, 316. 

Campeggio, Cardinal, 187, 377. 

Campion, 78, 381. 

Canfield, R., 384. 

Canigiani, G., 247, 256. 

Capello, F., 262. 

Capgrave, 4. 

Capistrano, Marquis of, 119, 150. 

Caraccioli, 95. 

Carbo, Ludovico, 18, 23. 

Cardan, J,, 188, 215. 

Carew, R., 357 et seq. 

Carmeliano, P., 59, 181 et seg., 

196, 346. 
Carmellian, A., 196. 
Carmyan, Ellis, 77. 
Carne, Sir E., 378. 
Caro, 105. 

Casale, Sir Gregory de, 90, 186. 
Casale, John da, 90, 186. 
Cassiodorus, 137. 
Castagniolo, A., 246. 
Castelvetro, J., 105, 191. 
Castelvetro, L., 359. 
Castiglione, 61, 63, 68 et seq., 74, 

76, 81, 83 et seq., 87 et passim, 

128, 187, 319. 
Castiglione, Battista, 98, 191. 
Cataneo, 96. 

Catherine de' Medici, 171. 
Catherine of Aragon, 378. 
Cavalcanti G., 263. 
Cavalcanti, The, 270, 272. 
Cavallari, 196. 
Caxton, 26, 288, 
Cecil {vide also Burleigh), 90, 

213, 273 et seq. 
Cecil, R., 99, 160. 
Cellini, Benvenuto, 192, 195. 
Chalcondylas, 29. 
Chamber, J., 37, 188. 
Chamberlain, 384. 
Chandler, Thomas, 12 et seq. 



INDEX 



413 



Chapman, G,, 353. 

Charles the First, 198, 314. 

Charles the Fifth, 293. 

Charles the Eighth, 196. 

" Charowchon," 265. 

Chaucer, 240, 317. 

Cheke, H., 365. 

Cheke, Sir J., 48, 188, 345, 361. 

Chichely, Henry, 52. 

Chicheley, Reynold, 15. 

Chrysoloras, Manuel, 5, 7. 

Churchyard, 330, 336. 

Ciabo, A., 188. 

Cicero, 9, 25, 139. 

Cinthio, Giraldi, 75, 83, 356. 

Cittolini, A., 212. 

Clarke, W., 340. 

Claudius, 137. 

Clement, Vincent, 12 et seq. 

Clerk, T.. 191, 375- 

Colet, 36, 42 et seq., 188, 208, 214, 

345- 
Columbus, 278, 280, 282. 
Conestaggio, 309 n. 
Conflict of Coiiscie?ice, 365. 
Constable, H., 149, 205, 336, 339. 
Constance, Council of, 23, 52, 

217. 
Contarini, G., 129, 302, 306, 376. 
Contarini, P., 262. 
Converso, 349. 
Cooke, Anne, 112 et seq., 209 et 

seq. 
Cooper, Bishop, 106, 350. 
Corbo, T., 263. 
Corsi, A., 263. 
Corsi, The, 265. 
Cosimo, Duke, 269 et seq. 
Courtenay, E., 212. 
Courtenay, P., 53. 
Courtenay. W., 233. 
Cranmer, 49, 208, 210 et seq., 

213. 
Crashaw, 353. 
Crichton, 112. 
Croce, G., 349. 
Croke, Richard, 49, 55. 



Cromwell, Thomas, 47, 90, 113, 
186 et seq., 197, 264, 266 et seq., 
269, 276, 291 et seq., 314. 

Dallington, Sir R., 70 et seq., 121, 
125, 131, 135, 141 et passim, y3f). 

Dandolo, G., 238, 262 «. 

Danett, T., 309 ti. 

Daniel, S., 339 et seq., 356, 359. 

Daniello, 358. 

Dante, 11, 180, 317 «., 320 et seq. 

Danvers, Lord, 207. 

Davies, Sir J., 340. 

Davison, F., 126 et seq., 131 et seq. 

Decembrio, Pier Candido, 5, 7. 

Delia Casa, 61, 81 et seq., 87, 
107. 

Demosthenes, 161. 

Derby, Lord, 235, 

Desainliens, vide Hollyband. 

Dionysius the Areopagite, 34, 45. 

Dolce, 339 n., 358 et seq. 

Donatello, 193. 

Doni, 105. 

Donne, 353. 

Dowland, },, 122, 349 et seq. 

Dragout, Rais, 134. 

Drant, 357. 

Drayton, M., 97, 328, 339, 348, 
356. 

Drummond, W., 175. 

Drusiano, 366. 

Duns Scotus, 43. 

Durham, Bishop of, 102. 

Dyer, 357. 

E. K., 360. 

Eden, R., 280. 

Edmund, 231. 

Edward the First, iSo, 2^3 et seq. 

Edward the Second, 236 et seq. 

Edward the Third, 235, 238 et 

seq., 258, 263 n. 
Edward the Fourth, 288 et seq., 

314- 
Edward the Sixth, 48 et seq., 69, 
95, 188, 210, 215, 269. 



414 



INDEX 



^Elizabeth, Queen, 67, 96, 98, 112, 
115, 164, 169, 189, 192, 204, 220 
et seq., 272 et seq., 302 et seq., 
319. 365. 379 et seq. 

Elizabeth of York, 181. 

Elyot, Sir T., 64, 105, 108, 293, 

363. 
Erasmus, 33 et seq., 36 ei seq., 

44 et seq., 49, 54 et seq., 157, 

182 et seq., 216. 
"Essex, Earl of, 71, 73, 99, iii. 
Estensi, The, 181, 289. 
Estienne, H., 169, 360. 
Estiennes, The, 106. 
Eugene the Fourth, 5. 
Evelyn, J., 200. 

Fairfax, E., 357. 

Falier, 219 et seq. 

Federici, C, 281. 

Fenton, G., 168, 309, 364. 

Fernando de Vittoria, 37. 

Ferrabosco, 78, 350 et seq. 

Ferrice, G. A,, 98. 

Ficino, 33 n., 45, 82, 345. 

Field, T., 276. 

Filelfo, 33 n. 

Firenzuola, 333. 

Fisher, Bishop, 39, 49, 55. 

Flavio Biondo of Forli, 12. 

Flemming, Richard, 23. 

Flemming, Robert, 17 et seq., 23 

et seq., 27, 30, 52, 318. 
Fletcher, G., 336, 339, 348, 
Florio, ]., 70 et seq., 98 et seq., 

102 et seq., iii, 156, 189, 356, 

371- 
Florio, M. A., 100, 213. 
Fluto, N., 134. 
Ford, E., 362. 
Ford, J., 366. 
Fortescue, 293. 
Fortes cue, T., 364. 
Fortini, B., 272. 
Foxe, Richard, 54 et seq., 291. 
Fracastoro, 346. 
Francesco d' Arezzo, 25. 



Francis the First, 92, 192. 
Fraunce, A., 348, 357. 
Free, John, 17 et seq., 20 et seq,, 
28, 33. 35. 49. 150. 259, 261, 318. 
Frescobaldi, L., 264. 
Frescobaldi, The, 235 et seq. 
Frontinus, 137. 
Fulwood, W., 82. 

Galen, 32, 37. 
Garcilaso de la Vega, 348. 
Gardiner, Stephen, 54. 
Gascoigne, G., 110, 160, 230 et seq., 

351. 359. 361, 364. 366 etseq. 
Gattola, Angelo, 12. 
Gelli, J. B., 345 n. 
Gentile, Alberico, 303 et seq. 
Gentillet, I., 169, 305 et seq. 
Geoffrey of Monmouth, 290. 
George the Third, 198. 
Ghinucci, 56, 90, 186, 377. 
Ghirlandajo, 196. 
Giberti, 377. 
Gigli, G., 90, 181, 346. 
Gigli, S., 59, 90, 183 et seq., 187, 

319. 
Gildas, 291. 

Giovanni Luigi da Verona, 195. 
Giovanni, Ser, 364. 
Giraldi, 270, 272. 
Gloucester, Duke of, 290. 

Vide also Humphrey, Duke of 

Gloucester. 
Golding, A., 212. 
Goldwell, T., 383. 
Googe, B., 331, 346, 348. 
Gosson, S., 167, 365, 368. 
Gower, 317. 
Granthan, H., loi, 
Grassi, Giacomo di, 73. 
Greene, R., 167, 306, 349, 352, 361 

et seq. , 

Gregory the Eleventh, 233. 
Gregory the Thirteenth, 379. 
Greville, Fulke, 192, 345, 357, 359, 

367. 
Grevin, J., 169. 



INDEX 



415 



Grey de Wilton, Lord, 95. 

Grey, Lady Jane, 112. 

Grey, William, 12, 17, 19 et seq., 33, 

52, ISO- 
Griffin, 339. 
Griffin, R., 383. 
Grifonio, 70. 
Grimaldi, A., 267. 
Grimaldi, G., 264. 
Grimald, N., 264, 331. 
Grimani, 57. 
Grisone, 70. 
Grocyn, William, "^oetseg., 42,44, 

46, 49 et seq., 207, 321. 
Grosseteste, Bishop, 179. 
Grotius, 304. 
Gualli, Cardinal, 179. 
Guarini, 181, 191, 340, 348. 
Guarino, B., 19, 24, 105, 
Guarino Veronese, 7, 18 etseq., 23. 
Guazzo, 63 et seq., 66 et seq., 69, 86 

et seq., 92 et seq., 104 et seq. 
Guicciardini, 307, 309, 313. 
Guidobaldo, Duke, 289. 
Guidotti, Dorothy, 272. 
Guidotti, Sir A., 269 et seq. 
Guiipin, 108, 353. 
Gunthorpe, John, 17, 23, 27, 52, 

54. 
Guylforde, Sir R., 115 et seq., 135. 

Hadley, William, 29. 

Hake, E., 351. 

Hall, Bishop, 76, 173, 276, 291, 351 

et seq.,sS9' 
Hallam, 317 n. 
Harington, Sir J„ 356, 359. 
Harrison, 161, 163, 173. 
Hartwell, A., 309 n. 
Harvey, G., 80, 165, 167,307,336, 

341, 352, 357, 360 n. et seq. 
Hatton, Sir C, 76, 
Haydocke, R., 205 et seq. 
Hawes, S,, 318, 320. 
Hawkwood, 16. 
Henry the Second, 230. 
Henry the Third, 231, 233 et seq. 



Henry the Fourth, 3, 262 n. 

Henry the Fifth, 290. 

Henry the Sixth, 12, 19, 248, 261. 

Henry the Seventh, 30, 41, 59, 78, 
181 et seq., 193 et seq., 196 et 
seq., 205, 258, 261 et seq., 278, 
286 et passim, 314, 373. 

Henry the Eighth, 'jj, g^ et seq., 
119, 182 et passim, 194 et seq., 
208, 219 et seq., 263, 265, 269 
et passim, 318, 352, 377 et seq. 

Henry of Navarre, 274. 

Henry, Prince, 230. 

Hermolaus Barbarus, 32. 

Hey wood, E., 375 et seq. 

Hilliard, N., 205 et seq. 

Hitchcock, R., 82, no. 

Hoby, Sir P., 90, 205. 

Hoby, Sir T., 117 et seq., 130, 
134 et seq., 139, 143 et passim, 

355. 365- 
Holbein, 77, 316, 
Hollyband, C., loi et seq., 170. 
Homer, 124. 
Horace, 162. 
Howell, J., 173. 
Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, 

3, 4 et seq., 17 et seq., 19, 26, 33, 

180 et seq. 
Humphrey, L., 62 et seq., 66, 108. 

Ina, King, 373. 
Innocent the Eighth, 183. 
Institution of a Gentleman, 64 et 
seq., 80, 108. 

James the First, 102, 121, 304, 
365. Vide also James the Sixth. 
James the Fourth, 290 et seq. 
James the Sixth, 382. 
Jenkinson, A., 280. 
Jerome, 5. 

Jerome of Treviso, 96, 199. 
John Bologna, 206. 
John, King, 230. 
John of Padua, 199, 201. 
Johnson, Dr., 108. 



4i6 



INDEX 



Jones, Inigo, ^^ et seq., 122, 175, 

203, 206. 
Jonson, Ben, 78, 108, 175. 
Jovius, P., 215. 
Juvenal, 353. 



Lupton, T., 108. 
Luther, 162, 172. 
Lydgate, 4, 317. 
Lyiy, 349. 



Katharine, Queen, 186, 194. 
Kepers, J., 84, 361. 
Kyd, T., 366. 

Langton, Thomas, 53. 
Languet, H., 99, 140, 143, 154, 

159, 169. 
Lapo da Castiglionchio, 4. 
Lascaris, 36. 
Latimer, Thomas, 30, 38 et seq., 

44. 376. 
Lawes, H,, 350. 
Lawes, W., 350. 
! Leicester, Earl of, 99, m, 189, 
309 n. 
Leland, J„ 21, 23 et seq., ^B,^20 

et seq., ^^j et seq. 
Lentulo, 100. 

Leonardo da Vinci, 95, 192. 
Leonicenus, 32. 
Leonicus, 376. 
Leopardi, The, 235. 
Leo the Tenth, 32. 
Leslie, J., 295 et seq., 315. 
Lewkenor, L., 121 et seq., 127, 

129. 143. 
Lily, G., 33, 43, 375 et seq. 
Lily, William, 46. 
Linacre, Thomas, 30 et seq., 42, 
44. 46, 49 et seq., 55, 185, 188, 
321, 376. 
Litolfi, 219 et seq, 
Livy, 13s, 137. 

Lodge. P., 336, 339, 348, 352, 363. 
Lomazzo, 149, 205. 
Longolius, 376. 
Lope de Vega, 316. 
Loraine, Cardinal of, 47. 
Lucar, Cyprian, 97. 
Lupo, 190, 350. 
Lupset, F., 376. 



Machiavelli, 95 et seq., 145, 147, 
152, 169, 291 et passim, 308, 
313, ^/ seq. 344, 368 et seq, 
Majano, G. da, 197 et seq. 
Manetti, Giannozzo, 16. 
Manners, R,, 203. 
Mantegna, yj. 
Mantuanus, B., 347 et seq, 
Marenzio, L., 349. 
Margaret, Lady, 193. 
Mari, J. de', 240. 
Marini, 353. 
Marlianus, 121. 

Marlowe, 78, 164, 306, 354, 368. 
Marston, J., 108, 166 et seq., 351, 

353. 366. 
Martelli, 339 n. 
Martin, A., 211. 
Martyr, Peter, 209 et seq. 
Mary, Queen, 98, 189, 204, 206, 

210, 272, 374. 377 et seq. 
Mary Queen of Scots, 204. 
Matthew, Sir T., 384 et seq. 
Mazzoni, Guido, 196. 
Medici, Alberto de', 236. 
Medici, Ippolito de', 329. 
Medici, Cosimo de', 240 et seq. 
Medici, Lorenzo de', 16, 31, 82. 
Medici, Piero de', 31, 256. ' 
Mellin de Saint-Gelays, 327 «. 
Mendoza, 303. 
Mendoza, Hurtado de, 119. 
Merbury, C, 106, 295 et seq., 315. 
Meres, F., 161, 205 n., 340. 
Michelangelo, 96, 149, 205. 
Michele, 217 et seq. 
Milan, The Archbishop of, 5. 
Milanese Traveller, 250. 
Mildmay, Sir W., 100. 
Milton, 358, 
Minadoi, J,, 309 n. 
Minturno, 358. 



INDEX 



417 



Molza, 329. 

Montaigne, 102, 316. 

Montemayor, J. de, 363. 

Montorsoli, G. A., 148. 

Mora, 94. 

More, Sir Thomas, 36, 42 et seq., 
48, 55 et seq., 186, 264 et seq., 
293, 319^/ j^^., 347.375- 

Morley, Lord, 97, iii, 328. 

Morley, T,, 349 et seq. 

Morone, Cardinal, 308. 

Morton, Archbishop, 42. 

Mulcaster, R., 163, 361. 

Mulin, Adam, 9, 12 et seq. 

Munday, A., 381, 383. 

Musaeus, 354. 

Muzio, 94. 

Nannini, 307. 

Nannio, 349. 

Nash, T., 97, 160, 164 et seq., 167, 

328, 352, 361. 
Navagero, 91,319. 
Nelson, 198. 
Nennio, 62 n. 
Nicholas the Fifth, 20, 
Nicholas of Modena, 199. 
""Korfolk, Duke of, 48, 139, 262 w. 
Nori, S., 246 et seq. 
Northumberland, Duke of, 203, 

382. 
Norton, Master, 15. 

Ochino, B., 113, 208 et seq., 294, 

365. 
Oliver, Isaac, 205. 
Ols, Andrew, 15 et seq. 
Opicius, J., 182, 346. 
Orio, 56. 

Orsini, Virginio, 99. 
Otto degli Gherardini, 230. 
Ovid, 138. 
Oxford, Earl of, 74, 79, iii, 165. 

Pace, 44, 53 (?/ seq. 
Painter, W., 364. 
Palingenius, M., 346. 



Palladio, 203. 

Pallavicino, Sir H., 95, 269, 273 

et seq. 
Palmer, T., 125, 131, 173. 
Palmieri, Matteo, 16. 
Parma, Duke of, 95. 
Parr, Catharine, 98. 
Parsons, 381, 384. 
Partridge, 384. 
Pascale, 339 n. 
Patrizi, F., 108, 293, 301 et seq.^ 

309, 313. 
Paul the Third, 151, 208. 
Paulus Jovius, 215. 
Peele, 349. 
Pecock, 4. 

Pembroke, Countess of, 112, 340. 
Pembroke, Lord, 207, 222. 
Penketh, Thomas, 39. 
Penni, B., 196 et seq. 
Perera, G., 280. 
Perotto, N., 19, 33«., 36, 294. 



Peruzzi, The, 238. 

Pessagno, A., 236. 

Peter of Blois, 9. 

Petrarch, 11, 15, 20«., 22, 33 «., 
54, 82 et seq., 86, 97, 317 et pas- 
sim, 372. 

Petre, Sir G., 384. 

Pettie, G., 109 et seq., 166, 355, 

364- 
Pettworth, Richard, 12, 52. 
Phidias, 148. 
Philip of Spain, 381. 
Phreas, John. Vide Free, John. 
Pico della Mirandola, 43, 45, 82, 

293. 345- 
Piero del Monte, 5, 12, 181. 
Pigli, Gierozo de, 240 et seq., 251. 
Pinelli, Cardinal, 384, 
Pius the Second. Vide ^neas 

Sylvius Piccolomini. 
Pius the Fifth, 382. 
Platina, 24. 

Plato, 5, 32, 83 et seq., 345. 356. 
Pliny, 138. 



4i8 



INDEX 



Plutarch, 54. 

Pole, R., 292. 

Pole, Cardinal, 264, 375 et seq. 

Poggio, 14, 20 n., 52, 180, 214, 221, 

225. 
Ponet, Bishop, 208, 294 et seq., 365. 
Politian, 29 et seq., 56, 82, 318. 
Pomponius Laetus, 46. 
Pontanus, 13, 293. 
Porcia, Count G., 96. 
Portinari, Sir J., 246, 256. 
Portugal, King of. 271. 
Praxiteles, 148. 
Primaticcio, 192. 
Primavera, J., 204. 
Priuli, L., 376. 
Pronan, J., 240. 
Pucci, F., 212. 
Pugliano, Pietro, 70. 
Puttenham, 321, 325, 358. 

Rafael, M., 96. 

Raleigh, Sir W., no, 112, 359 n. 

Rambouillet, Marquise de, 82. 

Raphael, 149, 199, 205 et seq. 

Raviglio, 218 et seq. 

Relation of England, 218 et 

seq., 250. 
R6n6 of Provence, 248. 
Ricasoli, Rinaldo de, 194. 
Richard the Third, 53, 182, 258. 
Richard, Duke of Cornwall, 233. 
Ridge, R., 200 «. 
Ridolfi, R., 269, 273, 277, 382 et 

seq. 
Rizzio, 76. 
Robinson, R., 301. 
Rochford, Lord, 97, in, 328. 
Romei, A., 62 et seq., 83 et seq. 
Rovezzano, B. da, 197 et seq. 
Rowland, D,, loi. 
Rubeo, 307. 
Rutland, Earl of, 11, 99, 203. 

Sackville, in, 367. 
Sackville, Sir R., 162. 
Sadolet, 47. 



St. John Chrysostom, 29. 

St. Paul, 45, 

Salisbury, Earl of, 180. 

Salutati, Coluccio de', 52. 

Sannazaro, 338, 346, 348, 362 etseq, 

Sanders, N., 308. 

Sandys, E., 130, 159, 269. 

Sanford, J,, 371. 

San Severini, 95. 

Sassefti, Captain, 95. 

Saviolo v., 66, 71 et seq., 74 et 

seq., 94, III, 170, 
Savonarola, 45, 210. 
Savorgnano, M., 96, 185, 187. 
Scacco, C, 189. 
Scaliger, 105, 358 et seq. 
Scot, E., 373. ' 
Sega, Cardinal, 383. 
Segar, W., 64, 67 et seq., 74, 76, 

93, 109, 114. 
Selhng, William, 29 etseq. 
Seneca, 367. 
Serafino, 333. 
Serravalle, John of, 317 n. 
Shakespeare, 71, 74, in, 164, 166, 

264, 316, 329, 338, 340, 347,363, 

369 et seq. 
Shelley, Sir R., 383. 
Shepherd, J., 373. 
Sherburne, Bishop, 198. 
Shute, J., 203. 
Sidney, Lady M., 168. 
Sidney, Sir P., 70, 74, 99, no ei 

seq., 122, 127, 140, 146, 149, 154, 

i^g etseq., 169, 192, 336 et seq., 

345 et seq., 356 et seq., 363. 
Silver, G., 71 etseq. 
Simon de Taramo, 12. 
Sixtus the Fourth, 24. 
Skelton, J., 318, 320. 
Smith, J., Id. 

Smith, Sir T., 65 et seq., 307. 
Smyth, E., 132. 
Smythe, R., 364. 
Solari, 201. 

Somerset, Duke of, 199, 208. 
Soranzo, 80, 218 et seq., 309. 



INDEX 



419 



Southampton. Earl of, 99. 102, 

III, 371- 

Southwell, 38 1. 

Sovico, G., 217. 

Spenser,iii.i38. I65,336^^^^?•. 
•340.n^^..348.356^^^^/-37I 

Spinelli.Su-T.,77.90. 186. 

Spinola, A., 263. 

Stafford, John, 52. 

Staggio, Bindo da, 250. 

Stanley, Dean, 195. 

Starkey, T., 265. 

Stella, J. C, 359 «• 

Steno,M., 262 «. 

Stephen, Master, 230. 

Stowe, 79, 264. 

Straparola, 364. 

Strozza, 333. 

Strozzi, F., 251. 

Strype, 291. 

Subtlety of Italians, 169 et seq. 

Sulpitius, 46. 

Surrey. Earl of. 97- "i. 3^9 ^' 
passim, 353, 358- 



Tofte, R..339. 356 »• 
Tolomei. 357. 

Torkington. Sir R., 116. 150- 

Torrigiano. P., I93 ^^ ■^^^• 

Tottel's Miscellany, 330 et seq, 

Toto. A., 196 et seq., 200. 

Toto del Nunziata, I95- 

Trevisani, A., 215, 262. 

Trezzo, J., 204. 

Trissino, 358. 

Trivulzi,95. 

Tuke, Sir Bryan, 270, 272. 

Tunstall, 38, 54. 

Turbervile, G., 7°. "O. 331, 304- 

Turler, J., 121, 129, 139 etseg., I59- 

Tuscany, Grand Duke of, 121, 

206. 
Tyndale. William, 43. 



Ubaldini, P., 95. 97 "•. ^S^. 180, 191, 

205, 217 et passim. 
Udall, N.. 211. 

Urbino. Duke of. 109, 187, 205. 
Utrin, G., i97- 



Tahureau, J., 169. 

Taille, J. de la, 169. 

Tancred and Gismunda, 367. 

Tani, A., 247. 

Tartaglia, 97. 

Tasso, B., 354- 

Tasso, T., 105, 191. 338. 3- 

seq., 348. 354. 356. 
Terence, 44, 55- 
Terenziano, G., 212. 
Theocritus, 348. 
Thomas, W., 99 ^^ •^^!?- ^ . 

,,^.,135 etseq., x^o et passim 

156. 249. 279. 295 ^t ^^^/- 308. 
315. 352. 358. 370. 
Thomas of England, 15. 
Tiber io. Captain, 95. 
Tintoretto, 149. 

, Tiptoft, John, Earl of Worcester. 
17 et seq., 23 et seq., 33. 40, 3i4- 
Titian, 205, 363. 
Tito Livio of Forli. 4. 290. 3o8. 



Valatesso. L.. 262. 

Valdes. Juan de. 210. 

Valla. 22. 33«-^^^^V- 36. 46. S^^ 

294- 
Van der Noodt, 337. 
Vannes, P., 90.^82, 186. 
Vasari. 197. 206. 
Vaux, Lord, 328. 
Venuto, 106. 
Vergil, P., 59. 184 et seq., 240, 289 

et seq., 302. 3^8, 3^3- 
Veronese, 149. 363- 
Verlomanno, L., 280. 
Vespasiano da Bisticci, 5. I7. 25. 
Vespucci, A., 282. 
Vicario. I79' 
Vida. 346. 
Villani, 238. 
Vinciguena. 352. 
Virgil. 44. 135. 138. 182, 348. 
Vitelli. Cornelio, 32 et seq. 
Vittoria, F. de, 188. 



420 



INDEX 



Vittorino da Feltre, 4, ^2. 

Vitruvius, 137, 147. 

Vives, 36, 57, 376. 

Volpe, v., 196, 

Voltaire, 249. 

Volusenus, Florence, 47, 265. 

Vulpe, Vincent, jy. 

Walsingham, Sir T., 99. 

Walter Fitz Otto, 230. 

Warham, Archbishop, 44, 53 ^/ 

Warton, 365. 

Watson, T., 329, 332 ei seq., 339, 

348 et seq. 
Waynflete, Bishop, 53. 
Western, Sir H., 384. 
Whetstone, G., 86. 
Whitehorne, 96, 110. I 



Willes, R., 114, 280. 

Wilson, T., 360. 

Wiltshire, Earl of, 90, 97. 

Winter, T., 265. 

Wolfe, J., 191, 348. 

Wolsey, Cardinal, 44. 56 et seq., 

113, 183 et seq., 197 et seq., 266, 

291. 314- 
Worcester, William, 48. 
Wyclif, 24. 
Wyatt, Sir T., 90, 98, iii, 319 et 

passim, 349 et passim. 

Yonge, N., 349 etseq. 
Young, Dr. J., 193. 

Zepheria, 338. 
Zerlito, J., 214. 
Zuccaro, F., 204. 



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containing the results of literary research or criticism by the students 
or officers of Columbia University, or others associated with them in 
study, under the authorization of the Department of Comparative 
Literature, George Edward Woodberry, Professor. 



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